benjaminkicks

Well damn, now I'm excited.

I've been delving into Michael's work in The Rockers, and it's just raising my opinion of him. He was an awesome babyface tag wrestler. I still need to check out his AWA stuff, and I think I'm going to do a 90's WWF rewatch at some point before this is all said and done, but honestly if that stuff holds up I can really see Michaels sneaking into my top 20. And this reminds me that I need to dig into Bret Hart's tag work at some point too.

The Rockers were before my time, but I've been doing some catching up on their work in the WWF and they've really been impressing me. They were a fantastic babyface team. Fast-paced, exciting offense, lots of great double team moves, great at gaining sympathy during FIP segments, awesome hot tag sequences. Pretty much everything I want in a babyface tag team. I still have some more of their WWF work to delve into, plus their AWA stuff, but if they keep impressing me like this they have a real shot of making it into my top ten. And their stuff is driving up my stock of Shawn Michaels, who was just a really great tag wrestler.

I fucking love Kobashi, but he's never been quite as interesting as the other Corners for me, for various reasons. But still, being my least favorite Corner will still net Kobashi a spot on my GWE list in the 10-15 range.

I look at it as Tenryu's incredible longevity vs. Kawada's lofty peak. If Kawada's peak were only 3, 5, or even 7 years, I would probably give it Tenryu, but Kawada was an elite, high end worker for at least 10 years. I choose Kawada. His peak is one of the highest of any wrestler ever. It's kinda hard to compete with that, though I do think Tenryu and Kawada will end up pretty close together on my GWE ballot.

Sign me up

Man, for a show called "Elimination Chamber" both of the Chamber matches last night were pretty disappointing for me. The tag match was full of capable wrestlers, and there were some bright spots like Cesaro being possibly the most exciting in-ring babyface on the main roster, but the structure of the match was all over the place, it had a lot of very contrived spots that I didn't like, and I think it really could've benefited from the inclusion of Harper & Rowan. The good thing is that this is the most stacked the tag division has been in forever, and a good tag division goes a long way towards making me interested in the main roster again. The IC title chamber match was pretty garbage. I actually like most of the guys involved, but the booking of them has been total trash pretty much all year. And now I really just don't care about any of them, because creative clearly doesn't, and everyone looks like a midcard jobber. Ryback winning is sole positive in my mind, because he's actually over and is the guy who probably needed the belt the most. There was a small window there where it looked like the IC title might be important again, but it seems like those hopes were put to rest when Bryan got hurt. Other than Owens/Cena and the main (which were both enjoyable to me) it was a pretty weak show, and in my eyes one of the worst WWE PPVs/"Network Specials" of the year so far. BUT DESPITE ALL THAT, the main roster has a lot of good momentum now, and I'm interested to see what direction they go as we head into the summer months.

The number of classic matches is really the one thing that makes me hesitant about putting Hash above guys like Misawa or Kawada, but regardless of that I still think that Hash was as good a worker as either of them, and possibly even better. Misawa/Kawada vs. Hashimoto is really a great example of the "great matches vs. how a guy works" debate, and I'm not sure where I really fall on that one yet. But instinct tells me to more highly value the latter, considering this is a "Greatest Wrestler Ever" list and not a "Guy with largest number of classics to his name" list. And so I'll probably have Hash above Misawa, and maybe above Kawada.

Well that makes me feel better. It's crazy to me when I see people sleep on Hash, while praising the hell out of the Corners (haven't really seen that much here, but the IWC in general). But I guess that speaks towards how 90's New Japan is kinda underrated as a whole, while 90's All Japan has been getting continuous praise for like 20 years. But still, I think if Hash had spent the 90's in All Japan, he would have just as many classics under his belt as Misawa, Kobashi, or Kawada. As it happened though, he still had quite a few.

On certain days, Hashimoto is my favorite wrestler of all time. He's basically everything I want to see in a pro wrestler. Not sure how I can quantify that on my list, but he's currently sitting at #6 for me, and there's a good chance he'll move up higher. I wonder how people have Hash ranked in comparison to the Four Corners? Because I think he was as good as any of them, and Kawada is the only one who I have above him right now, and that could easily change.

My top 10 if the ballot were due today: 1. Terry Funk 2. Jumbo Tsuruta 3. Stan Hansen 4. Ric Flair 5. Toshiaki Kawada 6. Shinya Hashimoto 7. Mitsuharu Misawa 8. Genichiro Tenryu 9. Tatsumi Fujinami 10. Daniel Bryan Vader, Akira Taue, Jerry Lawler, Jun Akiyama, Nick Bockwinkel, Buddy Rose, Hiroshi Hase, and Bret Hart are the other guys I considered for top 10 spots, and some may still find their way on there once this is all said and done.

I would add the G1 1998 match with Hashimoto. I watched it a few days ago and thought it was fantastic.

What's the consensus on Kawada's post-NOAH split work? Does his work in the 2000's help or hurt his case in your eyes?

I have Hashimoto above Savage. Savage has some all time character and promo work, and in his prime he was fantastic in the ring, but Hashimoto is like my ideal wrestler. Just a complete asskicker who always felt legit, and always brought that "big match feel" wherever he worked. For comparison, I'll most likely have Savage somewhere in the 15-30 range on my GWE project, and Hashimoto is pretty much a lock for top 10, possibly top 5.

I think Akiyama is fucking great, and he's been having high end matches for like 20 years now. At this point I have him above Kobashi, but I'm not sure where he ranks in comparison to the others.

I love Taue. My gut has him at #2 behind only Kawada, though I'm not sure my brain can justify that. The Holy Demon Army is one of my favorite tag teams of all time, and I tend to enjoy Taue's singles work more than most.

Since there's been a trend of doing these comparison thread, I figured I'd ask another tough one. I'm interested to see how you people would rank these guys in comparison to each other? How would you rank their peaks in the 90's? Their pre peaks from before 1990? Their post peak work from in the new mellenium? Ranking these guys is proving very tricky for me in my GWE drafts.

Right now on my GWE draft Jumbo is #2 and Misawa is somewhere in the 6-10 range. I love Misawa, but right now I have Kawada above him as well. I'm still working my way through a 90's All Japan rewatch/gap filler right now though, and some NOAH stuff that needs a revisit, so there's plenty of chances for Misawa's stock to go up with me. Still got plenty of prime 70's and 80's Jumbo to watch as well though, so the sky is really the limit for both guys.

I'm a huge fan of both guys. In my first draft of my GWE list I had Funk at #1 and Hansen at #3, with Jumbo right in between at #2. So for now it's Terry, but there's still plenty of time for that to change.

The more stuff I watch, the more convinced I am that Terry is my #1. If there's a Terry Funk performance out there that I don't at least somewhat enjoy, I haven't seen it yet. Of course there's still plenty of time left, and I have a lot of wrestling to watch still, but I don't see Terry being unseated from my top spot anytime soon.

Thanks I wonder why that is? Have either of them commented on why there was never a prolonged feud between them? They just simply like being partners more than opponents?

Well if it helps, I'd say that AJ was possibly a top 10 in the world guy back in 2005 as well. That's one of his best years. And he was pretty damn great in all the years between '05 and now as well. I think he's been an elite worker for at least 10 years now.

So is this the only time the Funks faced each other in a singles match?

I think Styles, Punk, Bryan, Cena, KENTA, and Zayn are all pretty much locks for me at this point. Tozawa, Aries, Lesnar, Batista, Cesaro, Hero, Steen, Ibushi, Joe, Sekimoto, and all the modern New Japan guys are others who have a chance of making it.

I think I was there live for that Reigns/Miz SmackDown match. Was pretty good, and I think the crowd was pretty hot for Reigns (though we were hot for pretty much everything). There was a really fun house show-like ending that I don't think made it on TV, with Reigns trying to fight off a bunch of heels, and then a bunch of crowd favorites made the save. Fun stuff, lots of brawling.