InYourCase

Hansen will be my #1 when I submit my ballot. I had seen very little of him going into this project. The famed '93 Kobashi match for sure and only a handful of others. Everything from Japan, Puerto Rico, and America that I watched of Hansen was all new to me and it blew my mind. I put value into non-Japanese workers succeeding in Japan. There's something there that I just can't ignore. Hansen, more so in All Japan, was treated as royalty and feared like the monster that he was. It was a thing of beauty. Outside of the 4/3/1980 match with Inoki, the infamous Andre match, and a fun, six minute sprint with Fujinami, Hansen's run in New Japan doesn't wow me. It's good, with the Andre match being out-of-this-world great, but that run is just a minor blip of what made him so great. From the beginning of his All Japan run, though, he turns it up to a level that I didn't know existed. DiBiase was a bubble guy for me, but he fell off after underperforming in nearly all of the tags I've seen with Hansen. He looked awkward and uncomfortable while Hansen fit like a glove. Brody, Spivey, DiBiase, Vader, and Gordy were all, at times, very good when teaming with Hansen, but not once did I ever feel like Hansen was the weak link. In a lot of my notes for 80s tags, I remark about how well Hansen controlled the ring. Everything seemed to revolve around him in one way or another. If he was in the ring, he was dominant. He may have gone down, but it wasn't without a fight. In matches like 12/12/85 (Hansen & Ted vs. Choshu & Yatsu) everything is so much more calm when Hansen is not in the ring. It was his aura that made the match exciting. One thing I really appreciated about Hansen's singles matches, especially in Japan, was the violence he portrayed while brawling on the outside of the ring .I hate walk-n-brawls. Jeff Jarrett has never done anything for me. Same with Dreamer. But when Hansen is on the outside, the match feels so much more dangerous. You don't know what he's going to do or what body part he is going to target, but it's going to hurt. The 10/21/86 match with Jumbo is probably the best example of this. 1990's Hansen is another animal. I don't know if there's ever been a greater contrast than 1991 Kobashi and 1991 Hansen. LOVE their 9/4/91 encounter. The Kawada match from February 1993 is one of my favorite matches of the decade. It's perfect. It's exactly what it needed to be and it's both guys and their very best. The 9/3//1994 Akiyama singles match is another fun one. Akiyama is so plucky, so full of life, and so ready to thrive, but Hansen is simply not in the mood for that shit. I can't really call it a squash match, but it's one of my favorite one-sided matches ever. The amazing thing is that even when he slowed down towards the end of his All Japan run, he still looked great. I love the Vader/Hansen duo. The 12/5/98 match with those two vs. Kobashi & Akiyama is a blast. Even going into post-Baba era, I think Hansen is incredible in the 7/23/00 tag. There he is noticeably slow and actually looks really bad on the outside with Tenryu at one point, but in between the ropes, he was awesome. The one major knock I have against Hansen is that he never had a match with Misawa that I liked. I couldn't get into any of them. I respected what they were trying to go for, more so in the 7/27/90 match than any of their other encounters, but I could never get fully invested in them. Even with that, he pulled watchable stuff out of Baba and Inoki, which I value a lot. Inoki rarely is involved in stuff I like and I think Baba's best work was against Hansen. Moving away from Japan, I direct everyone to JvK's comments about the Colon vs. Hansen feud. I echo his thoughts. The Colon feud sets Hansen apart from the rest of the pack. From an in-ring standpoint, Kobashi, who is currently my #2, has a higher peak and while he offers a different set of assets in-ring compared to Hansen, is probably even in terms of skill, but Kobashi wasn't involved in anything like the Colon feud. I love it. I don't think I'll have time to go back and rewatch the feud before ballots are due, but I'm going to soon. I loved it. The Bruno cage match, Backlund singles match from 1981, and his pimped stuff from AWA is all really good. I wish he had a chance to shine in WCW against Sting and/or Flair, because then I think he'd be a runaway #1 with a lot of people, but his AWA run shows that he could thrive in the US. The Leon White match is a blast. I hate the finish, but I'm a huge fan of the Bock match from 4/20/86. All of that is just padding to his greatest wrestler ever case. I've enjoyed very few people's selling more than Hansen. It's like a don't poke the bear thing. He's always angry, but little things can happen throughout the course of a match, whether it be one too many kicks from Kawada or a chop that was just a little too stiff from Tenryu that will set him off. Still, I've never seen him blowoff limb work. Even when his arm is worked over, there is a sense of pain there that not many people can portray. Hansen is going to be my #1. His offense is too good, his peak is too high, he was great for too long, and his selling was too outstanding for anyone to touch him.

re: Kikuchi - have you seen any of his NOAH run? He's the polar opposite of what he was in All Japan. Crabby, old, and stiff. I like his 2002-2003 run more than anything he did in All Japan and I'm really high on his AJ run.

His best stuff, to me at least, is the Benoit stuff from Velocity and No Mercy and the Hero match from NXT. Parv, I think you'll dig those a lot.

I get that. In all fairness, it really was the Okada performance that made the match as enjoyable as it was, but Tenryu and his aura were still present and still magical. From an analytical standpoint, he was terrible. But from a pure spectator's standpoint, it was incredible.

This is my issue with Waltman. He'll be on my list. He's way too good to not be on there, but I have no clue where he should be. I'm thinking he'll end up in the 60-70 range but I could buy an argument for him finishing in my high 50's.

Love Spike. Behind Tanaka, Tajiri and Awesome as my favorite ECW worker. Right now I have him penciled in as my #99. He was so excellent in his role. Going through ECW on TNN on the Network, I think he's stood out to me as much as Tajiri has as someone who was amazing at playing their role. Huge soft spot for him. I've gone back and watched some of the pimped things Dylan mentioned above from his WWE run. Doesn't do a whole lot for me, but it validated that he deserves a spot on my list.

Tenryu's career as a whole amazes me. The fact that he's had great matches dating back to 1983 (some could argue 1982 with the first Jumbo match) and just last year put in an inspiring performance against Okada is mind-blowing to me. Is his peak longer than anyone's? Hansen had great matches in four decades. Same with Liger. The same can be said for Tenryu. The WAR vs. NJ feud has been one of my favorite things I've watched for this project. It's not that he looks that much better working with the lesser WAR workers, but that he sticks with Hashimoto, Fujinami, Liger (8/9/93 is an awesome tag match), Hase, & co. and most of the time looks better than them. Him working with UWFi guys has been a real pleasure, also. Love the 7/21/96 match with Anjoh. He won me over with his selling during his time in All Japan but I fell in love with Tenryu after watching his stiff, sloppy offense in the 90s. HUGE fan of Tenryu's early 2000's stuff in both All Japan and NOAH. The Triple Crown matches with Mutoh, Kawada, and Kojima are all outstanding. He's the best guy in all of those matches. His NOAH run is outstanding. He and KENTA had one of my favorite matches ever in October 2005 in front of a red hot Korakuen crowd. It adds to both of their cases. HIs tag stuff with Kobashi/Akiyama/Koshinaka is a total blast. Long story short, his peak is incredibly high. I don't know if there's one year that you could point to and call him the best worker in the world, maybe 1989, maybe 1993, but I don't think there's a definite year. He's been good for so long, though. That's what blows me away. His bumping has gotten worse through the years because like I said, I think his bumping and selling was amazing in All Japan, but that stiff offense that made him seem rather annoyed with anyone who he was squaring off against is my shit. Top 5 guy for me.

I echo a lot of Grimmas' thoughts. I think he's excellent even today. Love the Gen Next run and his later run with The Embassy. I mentioned it on Twitter a few days ago but in hindsight, MCMG's run in ROH was insane. Nothing but high quality matches. The two with The Briscoes, a great (long, but great) match with Jacobs & Black, a fun Steenerico match, and that great Kings of Wrestling match. Technically he's superb and he's a charisma machine. Sadly, I don't think there's room for him on my list.

I'm going to try to sit down and watch some Dory singles matches at some point over the next few days. I'm not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. He's shown signs of greatness in a handful of tags, like the '77 and '79 Tag League Finals, but, and maybe it's just him being next to Terry, I can also see the argument that he's just fitting in with his environment and latching onto Terry's greatness. If I don't hate his singles matches, I could see him finishing at the very bottom of my ballot (with the likes of Spike Dudley and Genki Horiguchi) but if his singles matches go the way I think they will, he won't be making my list.

Christ, I've watched so much Funk over the past three days. Memphis, All Japan, WWF, and a little WCW. I'm not really a Memphis fan (I won't be ranking Lawler), but I really dug his work with Lawler. Not a Hogan fan either, but I really liked his Saturday Night's Main Event match with Hogan and The Funks vs. JYD/Hogan. I watched his WCW stuff at the beginning of the project, or at least the highlights, so it was nice to see the Flair and Steamboat matches again. The All Japan run, holy shit. I'm not done with it yet. I still have plenty of stuff on Ditch's site that I need to get through, but nearly everything I've seen has been amazing. 4/13/83 vs. Hansen was a clean finish away from being one of my favorite matches ever. Both the '77 and '79 Tag League Finals are amazing and I didn't care for their opponents at all. Funk is putting in good stuff against Brody, young Jumbo, Baba, and of course Hansen. I'm getting to the Eddie Gilbert stuff and his brief MLW run in a few days. Very excited to see the Gilbert stuff. Top 10 guy for me. Right now, he's above Flair. Don't see him cracking my Top 5 but if the Choshu stuff in All Japan wows me then there is a chance.

And this is without liking the Choshu feud? Because that's what really elevated him in my eyes. That and his work with Maeda, who I know I'm much higher on than you.

He's better than Del Rio.

Yeah, this. I already had Bryan ahead of Flair but there's no way that's changing now.

Do you want to correct names like Kevin Steen to Kevin Owens? Or KENTA to Hideo Itami? For people like that, how do you want them submitted on our final ballot?

To add to this: Arik Cannon Alex Shelley Spanky Mike Quackenbush Doug Williams Scott Lost Delirious BJ Whitmer Jimmy Jacobs Lance Storm Rocky Romero Erick Stevens Jon Moxley Jigsaw Bobby Fish Munenori Sawa Young Bucks The Miz Kane Not saying all of these guys have had their best match against Dragon, but there is a case to be made for all of them.

Well, I don't like lots of them. See my review of Eddie vs. Rey 97, for example. I do not like Rey. The fact I'm rating him at all is testament to the fact that his case is strong. I can see where you're coming from in the review of Eddie vs. Rey. How much of his WWE run have you seen? I know you touched on some Smackdown Six stuff, but what about a few years later? My favorite part of the GWE project has been watching six minute Rey matches. His TV matches are so much fun and his big matches, when he has them, connect with me time after time. He's probably going to end up being my #5.

Mysterio Jr. getting a 6 in great matches is criminal.

I wouldn't argue if he was in someone's Top 20. He won't be in mine, but I could certainly listen an argument for it.

vs. Samoa Joe: ROH 10/2/04 vs. James Gibson: ROH 9/17/05 vs. Nigel McGuinness: ROH 8/12/06 vs. KENTA: ROH 9/16/06 vs. KENTA: ROH 6/23/07 vs. Morishima: ROH 8/25/07 vs. Tyler Black: ROH 7/26/08 vs. Morishima: ROH 12/27/08 vs. Hero: PWG 9/4/09 vs. Doi: DGUSA 9/6/09 vs. Bobby Fish: EVOLVE 7/23/10 vs. Shingo: DGUSA 7/24/10 Edit: Thought you were asking for recommendations. Sorry. Anyways, yes, he deserves a 9 or 10. He's one of the most dynamic workers ever. In every style he's attempted, he's succeeded. He played the role of a touring champion, a junior heavyweight, a vicious brawler, and a smooth technician all extremely well. I plan on making a list in the next few days of guys that have had their best match ever against Danielson. He's #2 only to KENTA in my pick for Wrestler of the Decade (in the 2000s) and all of that work was done on the indies.

I can't take this argument seriously when he took a huge part in creating atmospheres like in his matches vs. Necro, KENTA, Joe (in both PWG and ROH).

Does anyone have a link to this match?

The link to Hase's thread is broken. It's Shingo Takagi, also. Not Takagi Shingo.

Guess I didn't post in Yoshino's thread. Odd. Came here to make a point that I made on Twitter that Yoshino gets overlooked as a great worker because his speed is looked at as more of a gimmick than an asset to his overall ability. We have his entire career on tape (I don't think his Toryumon Mexico stuff has ever popped up but I've barely seen anything from there) and from the first T2P show, he's been very good. In recent years, he's become one of the more well-rounded workers in wrestling. It's led him to becoming the most popular wrestler in the company, or at least on the same level as CIMA. I think he's one of the better tag workers ever, also. His speed is a great asset in singles matches and it makes his tags standout in a company where tags tend to blend together. He's a very smart, dramatic worker. I think he has the best "kickout at 2" ever. No one milks that as much and even in front of dead crowds, that seems to get a pop. He's a Top 50 guy for me.

I have not, but I can't find it on Ditch's site.

Actively bad? What performance of his was bad? I think he is really solid and can be great from time to time. I don't see voting for him, but I can see him sneaking onto some lists. WingedEagle took the words out of my mouth. Everything he does is so slow. Part of it is the WWE style, but I don't think he's really that great of a big man. Against Rey and Bryan, sure, but those are two of the best wrestlers ever. Other than that, he's a stumbling giant who never looks comfortable or convincing with what he's doing.