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Not on the level of the Anjoh and Suzuki matches for me but still really good/great. Sano's defensive positioning and him wearing Shamrock out was something quite special and really well executed. Shamrock looked like a total badass too. ***3/4

Excellent speed and smarts vs. the monster narrative with some nutty bumping by AJ. Violent, creative Foleyesque spots + a ton of urgency. My top TNA match right now. ****1/2

Rewatched this and it's not quite as great as I remember but it's still a fantastic match. Great story of the outmatched champion doggedly taking it to the unbeaten monster bully even if it's getting him mauled. Ultra stiff strikes and fantastic intensity. ****3/8

Establishing Aja as the unstoppable monster, only to knock her out in shocking fashion was brilliant. Kansai selling her foot after that kick made the spot. Hokuto suddenly went from being the cocky bully to a fighting underdog and no one plays that kind of character transformation in a match better than Akira Hokuto. I liked the sympathetic duo Kansai and Hotta resorting to cheap tactics even with the 2 on 1 advantage, because they sort of earned it (though the heel heat it garnered was justified). They do a wonderful job teasing Hokuto pulling off an improbable win in a genuinely dramatic finishing stretch which includes the best nearfalls in history but Kansai/Hotta finish triumphant in an emotional climax. Incredible match. ****3/4

This is famous for Savage's leg selling, which is understandable but this is a fantastic match even without that. Terrific Bret performance, great drama + emotion + heel-face dynamic. ****1/4

Decent match thanks to Tully's energy and selling. Garvin does absolutely nothing for me but his offensive assault in this is quite good so it's not a total carryjob. **3/4

Good match thanks to Kawada's tenacious legwork and Ogawa's surprisingly good selling but I think it's a little overrated. Sort of one dimensional, hurt by lack of escalation. Also the countout followed by a restart just to end with another countout was pretty anticlimatic. ***1/4

The peak of the NOAH maximalist style. Near perfect build, escalation and layout with extremely layered storytelling. Great post match as well. One of the best matches of the 2000s. ****5/8

Really good match/borderline great match. Awesome Hashimoto performance and he makes the match for me. Selling, acting, violence, urgency. He was as great as ever. Kawada was alright but his leg selling was really bizarre. It was a weird mix of traditional selling, fighting through the pain selling and just plain no selling and came off as haphazard rather than unique. ***3/4

Rewatched this somewhat recently and thought it was a superb match. It reminded me of the Okada vs. Omega III actually in that I like the first two matches but the third match combines the best elements into a shorter time frame. Really good underdog performance by Punk and I liked his focused neck work. Prime Samoa Joe was something else: great selling, amazing offence and perfect character work. Pretty great crowd too (something I thought I'd never say considering it's ROH). ****5/8

A Top 5 career match for Tamura. Outstanding mat exchanges and Volk Han in Ilioukhine's corner providing advice was an awesome touch. Lovely build to the finish with Tamura's striking ability and superior cardio coming into play. ****3/8

I am weirdly high on the Han vs. Nagai series and this is my favorite. In the previous matches, Han owned Nagai no problem but here Nagai's growth frustrates him and poses a challenge. High end struggle and matwork. Awesome character work too with both guys taunting and mocking each other. ****1/4

I actually kind of don't like that match. I think it is good overall, but on personal taste I am not a fan at all. It like the opposite of the classic Favorite/Best delima. I understand that it is a good match and completely get why people like it... but ick. Agree, that match is decent but pretty overrated. The correct answer is actually Flair vs. Foley from Summerslam 2006.

I like both guys even if they are flawed and they gel extremely well together. Takaiwa simply mauls Marufuji here and destroys his leg too. A great performance that played to his strengths. Marufuji turns in a pretty great underdog and selling performance. 2001 MOTYC. ****1/2

Best ECW match ever and maybe my favorite trios of all time. High impact action, awesome heel and face work, interesting pairs; this has a little of everything. Eddie's babyface work and Scorpio's heel charisma stand out in particular. The best non-All Japan match of 1995. ****1/2

What didn't you like about Satanico's performance? I thought it was pretty much perfect with regards to grappling, rudo character work and selling.

Finally, a Bryan vs. Styles comparison. The best two wrestlers of this generation, not many people will argue against that I think. I suspect Bryan is going to win but it might be closer than expected considering how much AJ's stock has skyrocketed.

Man, that dent in Roman's forehead was something else. Also, Nakamura's interview from Smackdown was pitch perfect.

Disagree with this one. AJ had quite a lot of good to great matches in TNA. Huge range of opponents and types of matches as well. Strongly, strongly disagree with this one. 1990-94 Taue is fucking awesome. In fact I'll go out on a limb and say before the Misawa vs. Kawada 93 feud began, Taue was the best of the 4 corners.

Added picks for 2018 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19741-motys-by-year/?p=5812530

A little late but here is my WrestleMania review. Decent but utterly bizarre show. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. The Miz: Don't care about any of these guys but this was alright. Action packed. Solid opener. Charlotte vs. Asuka: I don't usually care about booking and maybe it's because I don't really like Charlotte but fuck that finish. What a waste of Asuka's momentum and the streak. Plus the way it was executed made it so much worse. Charlotte, with an injured arm, grabs a Figure 8 out of nowhere and the invincible Asuka submits within seconds? Really? Good match but the finish left a bad taste in my mouth. Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton vs. Bobby Roode vs. Rusev: Kind of a nothing match to be honest Kurt Angle/Ronda Rousey vs. Triple H/Stephanie McMahon: Not a great match or even close but a really fun spectacle and, like people said, way better than expected. Kurt and HHH wrestling in slow motion was odd but Stephanie's heel antics were fantastic. She was arguably the MVP. I like KB8's Naoya Ogawa comparision for Ronda except Ogawa was terrible during his first year. Ronda looked great. Very fluid with natural charisma and energy. Bludgeon Brothers vs. Usos vs. New Day - Decent squash, I guess the Bludgeon Brothers are the Braun of the tag division John Cena vs. The Undertaker - I like the idea of Cena crying about the Undertaker for weeks and then getting squashed because he wasn't prepared for him actually showing up. Daniel Bryan/Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn ​- Ok match, though I expected more violence and hate. Great to see Bryan back though. Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax - Second best match of the night. Jax destroying Mickie James from the get-go was great. Alexa was awesome here. I think she's quite underrated in general. In between the chickenshit act, there was eye gouging and neat attacks on the leg. She took some nutty bumps near the end too. AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - Best match of the night. I know people were disappointed by this, which is understandable, but I liked it a lot. Not quite great but still. Not a fan of Nakamura but he turned a great performance here: intense, focused with some excellent knee selling. Styles was Styles. Working a more "epic" formula would probably have fit the setting better but I liked the deliberate pacing and attention to detail. Braun Strowman/Nicholas vs. Cesaro/Sheamus - Cesaro's interactions with the kid made this. Probably a little long. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns - Brock would probably make my Top 50 if we did GWE again. Roman is really good. Their WM31 match is an all time classic. Yet, I was skeptical. And for good reason. This was bad. To be fair, there were some neat moments that saved it from being complete trash. Brock tossing pieces of the table at the German announce team, Roman getting suplexed face first into the table, Brock hooking both legs on the finish, Lesnar's high knee, the awkward violent spear into the table. Other than that, this was borderline awful. It was obviously Roman was going to kick out of an F-5 (maybe two) since they had protected it for a year. But the 3 F-5 kickouts in a row was ridiculous and the match essentially ventured into parody territory. The hardway spot was completely wasted too and meant nothing at the end of the day. Roman kicking out of 2 more F-5s (5 total) only to be pinned by a 6th was mindnumbingly stupid. Both guys were boring and brought nothing when it came to selling or character work (a complete 180 from their match 3 years ago). Bad performance by both. Plus the fact Roman is likely going to win the title at the end of the month makes all of this even more pointless.

Project has been really fun so far. Tons of matches have been nominated from different eras and regions. But we need a lot more participation. It's sort of stagnated since February with only a handful of people posting.

Pretty much this. Nothing even comes close. The depth of discussion and sheer diversity of styles/promotions covered from every era and region is not something you are going to get anywhere else. It's not without its flaws (certain people being needlessly unpleasant, some elitist attitudes) but the good easily overwhelms the negatives.

What matches have you been watching? Seeing him as a fired up rookie selling his ass off has been one of my favorite things about the recent explosion in AJPW footage. The Kawada match especially is some great stuff. I was thinking about the Kobashi and Akiyama GHC title matches. He was decent in the former and mediocre in the latter but people were saying he outworked both of them which I strongly disagree with. Additionally, the highly pimped Saito match from 2003 was really disappointing. He was just kind of there in some of the NOAH tags and trios I watched. With regards to most overrated and most underrated I got Shawn Michaels, Naoya Ogawa and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Shawn is obviously the undisputed GOAT or everything wrong with US wrestling/not good enough for a Top 500 list. Naoya Ogawa is either an awful worker who ruined Hashimoto or an amazing badass shooter. Tanahashi is the best wrestler of the generation or beyond terrible. Angle and Takada are great picks as well. I agree with the Lou Thesz pick for underrated. Huge influence/star obviously but maybe the best of the Golden Age guys. Some more most underrated picks Yuji Nagata - Has his flaws but has racked up a pretty impressive career with some very strong performances. Yoshihisa Yamamoto - Outstanding on the mat Koji Kanemoto - Not the best seller but overall he has had a fantastic career with good/great matches against a variety of people over a pretty long period of time. Good babyface, great heel. Franz Van Buyten - I guess footage is an issue but he impressed the hell out of me when I checked out some of the Germany stuff. Great seller, all time great babyface. El Samurai - Gets overshadowed by Liger and Ohtani (as he should) but he more than held up his end in those all time classic matches. Some more most overrated picks Riki Choshu - Still a fan but I've soured on him over the years. All his best matches are against absolute superworkers. Choshu brings his intensity and strong selling but it's pretty obvious those guys are basically carrying him because in constructing singles matches against others, he is very, very limited. Very good tag/multi-man wrestler though. Low Ki - Even though I'm a big fan of stiffness in wrestling, Ki is exhibit A for why just because you work stiff doesn't mean you're a good worker. Very dull to watch, lack of charisma, disappointing matches unless it's against Bryan. LA Park - Hurts me to say this but his brawls are too formulaic and that's why none of them really standout. Dusty Rhodes - I really like the bionic elbow. That's about it though. Takeshi Ono - The hybrid BattlARTS style is one of my favorites but, similar to Tamon Honda, I feel a lot of praise directed towards him is hyperbolic. Great offense but very limited in other facets.

Most Underrated Mariko Yoshida - Her 1999-01 run as good as anyone's in history. Azumi Hyuga - Great ace, versatile, excellent seller, great matches during Joshi's dead period. Megumi Kudo - Along with Foley and Onita, the best ever at working the hardcore style. Clive Myers - Best British guy outside the usual suspects. Great technician + personality. Yoji Anjoh - Same argument as Myers but for shoot style. I think this is spot on. And since we are on that subject Most Overrated Ron Garvin Blue Panther - I've done a 180 on Panther. Used to think he was one of the Lucha greats but looking back I have found a lot of his matches disappointing. CM Punk - Good worker, charismatic but no where near as good as his peers. Lack of high end stuff outside of the Joe Series and the Brock match. Stan Hansen Tamon Honda - A weird pick since he works the kind of style I usually like but think he is underwhelming more often than not and the praise is hyperbolic. Ted DiBiase - Pretty versatile and dependable but more a solid hand than a great worker. Keiji Mutoh - Wildly inconsistent Andre the Giant - I can understand the appeal since he was something unique but in terms of actual good/great matches, he has very little going on. Harley Race - Mind numbingly boring Hulk Hogan - I won't deny the energy and charisma during his prime but as a worker, he was not very good. Best matches were against Bockwinkel, Fujinami, Tenryu and one guess who was doing the heavy lifting in those matches. Alluding to the point El-P was making, just because someone is "incorrectly" labelled as terrible, doesn't suddenly make them good or great when you try and rectify that perception. The pendulum effect describes it perfectly. Steve Williams - Misawa got a great match out of him in 94 but I find him pretty dull in most other settings. Worst Kobashi opponent ever by a huge margin. John Cena - Still like him quite a lot, great ace. But his big match formula + many matches do not age well at all, inconsistent, lack of high end stuff. Dustin Rhodes - Really liked him in 91-94 but he has gaping holes in his career + inconsistencies + lack of high end stuff.