InYourCase

There were tag teams that I would've nominated if I was submitting a tag ballot. MochiFujii, Kne-Suka, RyoSuka, and Twin Towers (Sato & Ishikawa) come to mind.

Rey is my #5, so I won't have Eddie ahead of him. That being said, Eddie is someone sneaking into the bottom half of my 20's right now and he'll finish in that 27-35 range. I loved going through a bunch of his random TV matches a few weeks ago and I just knocked out a bunch of his big PPV matches from his WWE run and he's totally blown me away.

Tanahashi is a Top 20 guy for me. Having a plethora of great matches, probably more so than any other modern candidate besides Mochizuki really helps his case, but I think he's great at everything he does. His punches are a far cry from Matt Hardy's, but I can live with that. Love his bumps, love the way he sells, and I am all about subtle heel Tanahashi.

BxB Hulk, Human Tornado, and Jack Evans were guys that I thought about nominating but never got around to because I didn't think they were quite deserving enough. Seeing Evans' resurgence makes me think that next time something like this is done, I'll have to vote for him.

Loved the show. I have the ROH discussion to listen to tomorrow but I really enjoyed listening to this show.

Just for clarification, Kobashi wrestled Akiyama at the Dome in July 2004. I think it's better than their December 2000 match. The Akiyama match is a step below the Takayama defense, which you guys discussed, and the Misawa title win from 3/1/03, but those would be the best three matches from his title reign imo

I preach this regularly. Context matters. Selling and psychology are different for every promotion. Dragon Gate is different from 80's New Japan. Most wrestling is great, it's just different.

Will check that out for sure. Thanks for the recommendation.

I've been binging on Eddie lately and Jesus Christ, he'll be finishing very well for me. Not on the same level as Rey, but someone that doesn't get talked about enough when it comes to great TV workers. His Smackdown Six-era run has been a blast to go through and I really loved his performance against The Rock here. I really need to make time to watch his Black Tiger run because if that impresses me the way his ECW, WCW, and WWE runs have, he's someone that could crack my Top 30. Great brawler, great at sprints, I love his selling, his offense is explosive, and he's a solid tag worker. Can't believe I've neglected Eddie all of these years.

Kobashi Kawada Hansen Jumbo Misawa That's the way I'd rank it. I've seen Misawa have too many lame singles matches. I don't know how we all zoned in on his tag performances. I've seen him have a ton of lackluster singles matches while analyzing him in this project.

I've seen very few Hansen performances, if anyone, where he's looked actively bad or less than good. Even if he spent a night hanging around the apron, I still feel like he made his presence felt in a way that someone like Misawa didn't. You could say that's what Baba wanted from his ace and that's cool, but Hansen's tag performances blow away someone like Misawa's on a night-to-night basis.

I appreciate consistency more than anything. The Dragon Gate crew, Fujinami, Hansen, and Vader are all going to benefit greatly from that. Guys like Misawa, Cena, and Jumbo are all ranking highly for me, but they are hurt by their lackluster performances more than anything.

Any other feedback? The ranking of Masaaki Mochizuki over Ric Flair by someone on the panel somewhat undermined later claims that it isn't a favourites list. This is what I figured you were going to bring up. Honest question, not trying to provoke you or anything, how much Mochizuki have you seen? Because I've spent time in Mochi's thread and I plan to spend even more time over the next few days building his case. I can fully back up my claims as to why I think he's better than Flair and why I think he's a Top 10 wrestler of all-time. I get that I'm in the minority, but I firmly believe that. Glad you listened. I appreciate your feedback.

Any other feedback?

I'll be doing T2P reviews on my Dragon Gate blog soon after the deadline. That's been in my back pocket for awhile and I'm excited to get to that because I haven't formally reviewed any of those shows. After that, I really want to dive into WAR some more. Don't know exactly when or how, but everything about the promotion intrigues me.

Check out the EVOLVE 53 main event and all of EVOLVE 55. That should get you caught up on things.

I haven't watched it in awhile but I've seen it before. I don't think I meant to say that he's *never* been the best guy in a match, but he's certainly played second fiddle in a lot of matches that I've seen recently.

Bubble Guys: Milano Collection A.T., Great Sasuke, Kevin Steen, Matt Sydal, Yoshihito Sasaki, Homicide, James Gibson, and Bobby Fish That's 8 guys fighting for four spots. Leaning towards Milano, Sasaki, Homicide, and Gibson as the four guys to get those spots.

My thoughts on the project summarized nicely.

Misawa has fallen more than just about anyone with me. He's still ranked incredibly high, more than likely in my Top 15, but I projected him to be a #1 contender and he has not delivered in that regard. It's a weird thing to complain about, I know, but I've been really disappointed with a lot of Misawa I've watched recently. The 9/6/97 match with Akiyama is when I began to sour on him. That's Misawa at his worst. His charisma was gone, his offense was bland, and he was a far cry from peak, say, 6/3/94 Misawa. I watched a lot of Kawada/Misawa tags recently and I came away liking Kawada more in nearly every one of their tag matches. For some reason I don't have the date in my notes but there's a MVC vs. Kawada/Misawa tag from the 1990 Tag League that Kawada blew me away in. Misawa was so often playing second fiddle and while he was great occasionally, I can comfortably rank him behind Kawada and Kobashi. NOAH Misawa is fun when he's on. I love his two GHC matches with Takayama. Anything he did with Ogawa, Kobashi, or Akiyama was a blast, also. And the 2004 tag w/ Ogawa vs. KENTA and Marufuji is not only one of my favorite matches ever, but it's probably the last incredible Misawa performance other than his 2008 match with Morishima, which is remarkably great. I love Misawa. He's an all-time great, but not someone that I can put in my Top 10 after going through this stuff. He'll fall behind Vader, Akiyama, Mochizuki, and a few others but I don't see anyway he ranks worse than #20.

Landell is someone that I really want to give a fair shake to before ballots are due. If anyone has recs that Lanza didn't mention above, I'd love to hear them.

I think Parv would find a lot of enjoyment in early NOAH. I would like to hear his thoughts on 2000-2005 NOAH. Of course, he could always do a Toryumon retrocast with me. That's what the people really want.

I would find that ballot to be extremely interesting. Please submit one.

I mentioned both the WWWF and AWA runs. Only thing I saw from Memphis was the Bunkhouse match with Austin Idol, which I thought was fine. Is there anything I should check out from Memphis?

Given that you are voting for The Barbarian and have people like Sean Waltman as locks, I find this really pretty baffling. Ted's AJ stuff is pretty tangental to his case, which is built on his Mid-South run primarily where he was the main guy, not Hansen's little buddy. Wait, what? Barbarian wouldn't finish in my Top 500. Waltman is a lock but I also love his style and I think he was excellent at what he did. You don't like junior heavyweights as much as I do.