El McKell

Having looked into some Solar, I cannot imagine a world where he comes close to making my ballot. I really think having a sense of escalation is so important for my enjoyment of a match and I really find that lacking in Solar matches, and the wacky submission holds and letting your opponent out of them stuff really doesn't impress me.

I went **1/2 on this, your typical Regal tv match where he does the little things all right but it never clicks for me as anything exciting, less than the sum of it's parts. I simply do not get Regal the way his fans do Anyway Tommy Dreamer isn't any good and wouldn't have been nominated if Sandman caned him less hard in 1994, but somebody's gotta wanna vote for him so we bump the thread.

A pillar of consistency for years and years, unlike a lot of the old school Dragon Gate boys he shines more in singles than the multi mans where he can fade into the background. Alan's post above is a good selection of recommendations but we could and should add the 2017-11-03 match against Mochizuki which hadn't happened yet at the time of the last post in this thread

I think it's really cool when he does an arm drag but with his leg, that's all.

Sabu is surprisingly the MVP of this match

I think with Bockwinkel we don't have to give any credit whatsoever to him for the earlier parts of his career we're missing because with just what we do have is someone being one of the best performers of the 1980s and that's worth a heck of a lot of credit for this project, I can pretend that his career starts in 1980 and he's done enough to make my top 50 easily. When making this comparison I think it's worth thinking about that if all we had of Bock was his best single performance (the Hennig match from 21st November 1986) we'd have more ring time of Bockwinkel wrestling than Megumi Fujii worked in her whole career.

They said in the discord server on July 1st "I will get this updated in the next week" so it's not forgotten totally even if they haven't followed through on that statement

I love reading stuff like this that is just so alien to my own opinions. I see Fujiwara as someone who has all the tools to be great in theory but has hardly any "all time great level stuff" to show for it, to me Bryan so thoroughly blows Fujiwara away in terms of volume of really great stuff that there's probably 200-300 people between them.

He's 35

This isn't really weird cos Mutoh fucking rules and is incredible actually and Hashimoto isn't

"I've been to Parts Unknown, where Abyss is from and I found his girlfriend and trust me I went to the ugly part of Parts Unknown" Is an all time great sentence

We've got this tag match teaming w/Thesz against Inoki & Sakaguchi

Is it still a wrestling match if one wrestler is arrested for an actual assault on the other wrestler?

When does Funk actually retire in 1997? I know he spent the whole year basically doing last hurrah type stuff, the Bret match is presented as a kind of retirement but he just goes straight into an FMW tour, then does another FMW tour in December and is in WWF again by the end of the year. I don't think Terry Funk does enough really good stuff to be wrestler of the year in 1997 but he never actually takes any serious time off

Does hypnosis work in ring? is the weirdest fucking thing to have on the cover

Am I reading this right that WWE shareholders are getting 49% but the remaining 51% is going to Endeavor itself rather than to Endeavor shareholders? So as long as Ari Emmanuel remains CEO of Endeavor itself then he effectively has total control of WWE? Vince gave up control of the WWE and all he's really got for it is effectively a portion of UFC's future dividends? It's shocking to me that Vince would take this offer

Just looking at the threads and it looks like she was never added

He's violent and intense & he carries himself like a real star which makes him stand out in the environments he spent most of his career in. I could say that exact same sentence about Low Ki too except Low Ki was at a higher level when it comes to those things. What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Low Ki vs Super Dragon (28/07/01) ***¾ Super Dragon vs TARO (29/11/03) *** Super Dragon vs Kevin Steen (16/12/05) ***½ Super Dragon, Chris Hero & Necro Butcher vs Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer & Adam Pearce (23/04/06) **** Super Dragon vs Necro Butcher (02/09/06) ****

I was the high voter on Naomichi back in 2016, I'll probably drop him a few places lower this time around. I 100% understand not liking this guy at all, but he's my thing, especially when in tag matches where I think his lack of ability to create a compelling opening to a match gets covered for. I'm a sucker for matches that have a good sense of escalation throughout and time the ending at the absolute cresendo of it and that's definitely how this guys matches usually go. The hook kick from weird seemingly impossible angles is cool as shit. What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Makoto Hashi (12/09/03) **** Naomichi Marufuji vs KENTA (29/10/06) ****¼ Jay & Mark Briscoe vs Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura (02/03/08) ****½ Koji Kanemoto vs Naomichi Marufuji (03/05/10) ***¾ Naomichi Marufuji vs Minoru Suzuki (23/12/15) **** Naomichi Marufuji vs Kazuchika Okada (10/10/16) **** Naomichi Marufuji vs Kento Miyahara (30/04/18) ***¼

He's kind of got a cool vibe but I wish he had an output of better matches or just more stuff where he stands out as something special. We all love the Royal Rumble 91 match but that's really more of a great Rockers performance. The only match in the little list below where I thought he was the best performer was the one with Jannetty. There's a zero percent chance that Pat Tanaka ends up on my list. What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Pat Tanaka & Jeff Jarrett vs Memphis Vice (27/09/86) *½ Badd Company vs Midnight Rockers (19/02/88) **¼ Badd Company vs Brad Rheingans & Ken Patera (25/03/89) *** Pat Tanaka vs Marty Jannetty (17/10/93) **¾ Pat Tanaka vs Steve Austin (02/04/94) **

I couldn't tell when Trevor said it was one their best episodes ever if he was joking or not tbh.

Doesn’t belong in my top 100 but I’m someone who won’t be ranking Regal so the fact that I’m not ranking proto-Regal is to be expected. He is fun to watch, especially when he’s being vicious and less so when he’s doing his bumping and getting thrown around by the babyfaces (I can’t really articulate what about how he does this stuff that isn’t for me tbh) What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Terry Rudge vs Tibor Szakacs (05/04/74) **½ Terry Rudge vs Marty Jones (30/11/76) **** Terry Rudge vs Lenny Hurst (17/01/81) *** Terry Rudge vs Alan Kilby (20/06/81) **¾ Terry Rudge vs Ray Steele (10/06/87) *** Dave Bond vs Terry Rudge (19/03/88) **½

Charismatic as hell, easy to watch because of that magnetism in the way he carries himself. That Park match from TxT that people love starts off so good but veers into a dull walk n brawl in parts. He has an otherwise cool match with Mesias that has one of the most annoying table spots I’ve seen. His best match is a NJPW juniors match from the 90s that relies on none of what I think of as his usual strengths. I need to think about what I really think about Wagner and how to rate him. I’m not sure what to do with him What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Koji Kanemoto vs Dr Wagner Jr (03/06/98) ****½ Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani vs Dr Wagner Jr & Jushin Liger (06/03/99) ***½ Dr Wagner Jr vs Atlantis (13/03/01) *** Dr Wagner Jr vs Minoru Tanaka (01/06/01) ***¼ Mistico vs Dr Wagner Jr (27/07/07) **** El Mesias vs Dr Wagner Jr (13/06/09) ***½ Dr Wagner Jr vs LA Park (11/05/13) ***½ Dr Wagner Jr vs Blue Demon Jr (03/08/19) ***¼

His character probably seemed cool in the 90s but is pretty cringy in retrospect. I literally have no idea what he is good at in the ring. I think the highlight of his career might be some of the funny stuff as Johnny Polo. What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Raven & Stevie Richards vs Pitbulls (16/09/95) **½ Raven vs Tommy Dreamer (07/06/97) **¾ Diamond Dallas Page vs Raven vs Chris Benoit (15/03/98) **½ Raven vs Diamond Dallas Page (19/04/98) **½ Raven vs CM Punk (19/07/03) ***¼ Raven vs AJ Styles (27/08/03) ***

I stand by what I said in 2014 except for she is not the joshi wrestler of the 00s, but I do have a very strong soft spot for her and she is definitely unique and always fun to watch. What I watched for this so far and my match ratings Natsuki*Taiyo & Ray vs Kana & Nanae Takahashi (22/11/09) ***¼ Natsuki Taiyo vs Nanae Takahashi (12/11/11) ***½ Natsuki Taiyo vs Kaori Yoneyama (02/06/13) **** Natsuki Taiyo vs Io Shirai (26/01/14) **** Natsuki Taiyo vs Mayu Iwatani (06/04/14) ***