Kadaveri

We're talking about this match right: Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Kumiko Maekawa vs Kaoru Ito, Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi 11/23/00 ? It's on YouTube. Really awesome stuff.

That's fantastic thanks I'll get right on that.

Do you have some examples I can check out? I've just started looking more deeply into GAEA and I really enjoyed the 02/16/97 tag I think you recommended.

Here's 10 other Jaguar matches I'd recommend to get a feel of her in a variety of contexts: 1. Jaguar vs. Chino Sato - AJW 01/04/80 2. Jaguar vs. Jackie Sato - AJW 12/16/80 3. Jaguar & Jackie Sato vs. Jumbo Hori & Nancy Kumi - AJW 1981 4. Jaguar vs. Monster Ripper - AJW 1982 5. Jaguar vs. Devil Masami - AJW 07/19/82 6. Jaguar & Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 06/28/84 7. Jaguar vs. La Galactica - 02/27/85 8. Jaguar & Lioness Asuka vs. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda - AJW 09/02/95 9. Jaguar vs. Lioness Asuka - JD' Star 04/14/96 10. Jaguar & Devil Masami vs. Candy Okutsu & Dynamite Kansai - JWP 06/15/97

The Manhatten Mayhem match against Morishima is up there as a Top 20 match of all time for me. I'd rate the 2014 HHH match, the Kofi match and the Unified match against Nigel McGuinness in the Top 100. I do think it's fair to say that when you're talking absolute top tier all time matches, Bryan doesn't have as strong a list as a Flair/Misawa/Kobashi/Hansen, but he's not that far below and he does surpass those guys in other areas (sheer longevity as a top worker above all else).

Banger of a promo from the 2026 GWE winner.

The match was 25:59, they didn't go short at all. It just feels shorter than Triple H matches of the same length (it's actually longer than the HHH vs. Rollins match at WM33 which everyone complained felt like forever) because it's actually worked in a compelling way.

You know, I'm probably voting Bryan #1, but I don't honestly believe that HHH match was some kind of carryjob. For some utterly baffling reason, Hunter decided that for once in his life he'd actually wrestle as someone with the gimmick "The Cerebral Assassin" should wrestle and had a classic.

My favourite match tagging with Rowan was vs. Heavy Machinery at Stomping Grounds 06/23/19. Not a great match or anything but it's great Bryan performance, especially when you think about how really not on his level the other three are. The match with Roman Reigns against Harper and Rowan at Hell In A Cell 2019 is really good too. Btw if you ever watch that show, just watch the first two matches then turn it off.

Bet you didn't consider she'd main event a WWE PPV less than 12 months after this post and is now main eventing Wrestlemania. She's one of the most historically important wrestlers of the decade for sure.

How much footage of Mariko's matches do you think even exists? These are the only matches I've ever found: Mariko Akagi & Yumi Ikeshita vs. Nancy Kumi & Victoria Fujimi 1978 Mariko Akagi vs. Chino Sato 1979

I think what happened here is Bryan saw his ranking in 2016 and decided to return specifically to undermine all those arguments against him. His whole comeback has been astonishing not just in how great he's been, but how great he's been in totally new ways.

Hokuto gets held back a bit by people cherrypicking 4+ Star matches and not getting the wider picture with her. I know we all do that to some extent as there isn't the time to watch everything, but my thoughts on compilations have changed now, they should really aim to give a representative picture of a wrestlers wider body of good work rather than just the greatest matches. I'd say the great matches she has in the 80s are: 1. Chigusa Nagayo & Yumiko Hotta vs. Hisako Uno (this is Hokuto wrestling under her real name) & Yukari Omori - 10/10/86. To be clear this match is mostly down to Nagayo and Omori, who're both at their peaks here, but Hokuto contributes to the match and is a level or two above Hotta. 2. Hisako Uno & Yumiko Hotta vs. Judy Martin & Leilani Kai - 04/15/87. Unfortunately Hokuto breaks her neck a couple weeks later and is out for a year 3. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta - 03/04/89 4. Akira Hokuto vs. Chigusa Nagayo 03/19/89 - This match seriously rules. You know how great Hokuto already is at this point because this is her first ever opportunity in a main event singles match and she knocks it out the park in imo the best Joshi match of 1989. 5. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 04/27/89 6. Akira Hokuto & Mitsuko Nishiwaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 05/06/89 7. Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada - 10/08/89 - Some familiar faces to 90s fans here, but Hokuto is way ahead of the rest at this point. 8. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano - 10/XX/89 There is also the neck break match on 04/27/87, which obviously is gonna turn off some people but it was looking like a great match up until the botched piledriver, and even then seeing Hokuto give the most astounding display of toughness in wrestling history is quite something. But this is simply Hokuto's output when she was a midcarder, where 99% of the time it wasn't really her job to have great matches. But watch any match with her in it certainly from 1987 onwards and she's a stand out. An example I'll give now is 03/21/87 tag with Hotta against the Red Typhoons. There's only 10 minutes of the match shown on Classics (pretty sure it's clipped) so it's not great, but Hokuto looks like an absolute badass in it. Already at this point her execution is so on-point she can make almost any move look like a believable finisher. This is still true about her even in her much-lauded 1993. Here are two matches that you'll probably never see in Western fan's compilation where we're just looking for 4+ Star Matches, but they're a big part of the puzzle of why she was so over: Akira Hokuto vs. Yasha Kurenai - 06/11/93 - Note this is actually the most viewed Akira Hokuto video on YouTube at 4.3 million, but it's entirely Japanese fans in the comments. I never would have found this had I not thought to search for '北斗晶' instead of 'Akira Hokuto'. Akira Hokuto vs. Numacchi - 09/05/93 I know it's controversial whether or not we should take promo ability into account and yes I don't speak Japanese so can't truly know for sure but....... Come on. She is so obviously an effective promo here just by watching the crowd react and it's part of her aura. I don't think we can truly separate e.g. Steve Austin from his promos, so I'm gonna make a little effort here to at least get a vague idea of what the non-English speaking wrestlers could do and how they got over. Hokuto's not a #1 contender for me because, in spite of everything above, she doesn't quite have the longevity to justify it. When I see someone like Daniel Bryan who imo has had a 4.5 Star match every single year from 2001-21 except when out injured in 2016-17, she can't really compete with that. But longevity is certainly not some weakness for her either, she was probably great for longer than half the wrestlers who made the Top 100 last time. I think a flaw in how people visualise these things is they see every worker as having their own individual 'peak', and then confuse how long that was with their longevity as a whole. So for argument's sake (you could dispute the dates but let's just go with it to make my point clear), we can say Hokuto's individual peak was November 1992 - March 1994, i.e. just over a year. Whereas Shinsuke Nakamura's individual peak was 2011-16. So 6 years. So Nakamura has more longevity then? No he doesn't. Because you're not actually comparing like for like here, because someone can be before/after their individual peak, but still better than another wrestler ever was. That's the messy thinking which I think got Hokuto unfairly marked down last time, her November 1992 - March 1994 (yeah it's one of the best year-or-so runs by any wrestler ever) is so breathtakingly awesome, that the rest of her career gets harshly judged because it's not at that level. A better way to think about these things would be to (I'm coming close to reinventing BIGLAV here I know...) just look at every individual year of a wrestler's career worth judging and then comparing them with another wrestlers best years so the comparison is more meaningful. Another guy who had a similar "case is mostly confined to one year" narrative about him like time was Rick Rude, who ranked #77. Well let's compare Hokuto's best 10 years with Rick Rude's: #1 Year - Hokuto's 1993 vs. Rude's 1992. Rude's 1992 is a great year and all, but it's not on the same level. The best match he was in (WarGames) he's not even really a stand out performer in it (I'd say that goes to Dustin and Austin), which is not something you'll ever hear about a great Akira Hokuto match post-1986. The Iron Man match with Ricky Steamboat and the Chono match are really great, compared to the Kandori matches or the 93 Tag League final? Well, you know who I'm going with but at least there's some semblance of a debate there. #2 Year - Hokuto's 1992 vs. Rude's 1989. This just got a whole lot more lopsided. Hokuto reinvents herself as the dangerous queen, has a great series with Bull Nakano (I think their cage match is a little overrated, but that's balanced out by their less famous 03/07/92 match being a banger), which I'll include the Fuji TV Cup Final as part of (another great performance from her even if the match isn't amazing great). There's great stuff before that, she starts the year with a really great title match with Kyoko Inoue on January 4th where, amongst other things, she counters an Irish Whip into the turnbuckle by doing a somersault, spinning around and laughing in Kyoko's face all in 2 seconds in one the most amazing 'taunt spots' I've ever seen and already cooler than anything Rick Rude did in 1989. And that's not even the best match she had with Kyoko that year, you'll have to wait for 11/26/92 for that. Rude's best matches in 1989 just don't compare at all, tbf he's in the WWF and there's only so much you can get out of The Ultimate Warrior, but he was wrestling Roddy Piper and Ted Dibiase in singles this year too and there's a lot of good but I don't think there's anything even at the level of the Kyoko match (and Kyoko was still developing at this point and was a bit sloppy there). #3 Year - Hokuto's 1991 vs. Rude's 1993 I'm not sure if this would be considered Rude's #3 year, just from what I've seen, but this is just an annihilation. For whatever reason Rude just isn't the same guy as 1992 anymore, even some of the charisma is gone, nevermind his matches. He does have some really good matches with Dustin Rhodes, but that's about it, and Dustin's arguably the best guy in WCW at that point. Akira Hokuto has two matches in January alone which are miles better than anything Rick Rude did, the 01/04/91 match with Bull Nakano (tbf Nakano is one of the best in the world at this point) and the 01/11/91 Manami Toyota match. The Manami match isn't quite as good but I'd call it the most impressive match seeing how Hokuto's one of the few people who can really get Manami to wrestle a focused match with a structure rather than just spamming moves (even if they are great moves). Much watch. Hokuto's also in a fantastic tag match on 11/21/91 where she's the best performer in it and has the best non-Bull singles match Aja Kong had ever been in to date on 03/17/91. There's also singles match with Suzuka Minami on 04/29/91, 10/04/91 and against Yumiko Hotta on 09/07/91 which are relatively throwaway but still significantly better than any singles match Rick Rude had in 1993 with anyone who wasn't Dustin Rhodes. #4 Year - Hokuto's 1994 vs. Rude's 1990 I'm not sure at all how to rank Rude's years now because this is getting almost silly. Hokuto doesn't wrestle much in 1994 (and it's mainly in Mexico), but she does have one of the greatest matches of all time on 03/27/94 and another Top 100 contender on 08/24/94, and both of those matches she's the most important wrestler in them in terms of driving the narrative. Does Rick Rude even have more than two clearly "good" matches in 1990? And he's wrestling on TV a lot you know. #5 Year - Hokuto's 1989 vs. Rude's 1988 Rude has a really good match at the Royal Rumble with Ricky Steamboat. It's better than any Rude match in 1990 actually, but I'm taking into account that he's wrestling Steamboat here so is obviously better, whereas Rude does deserve some credit for his performance against the Ultimate Warrior at Summerslam 1990 even if I think the match was only just about good. Hokuto's best match in 1989 is against Chigusa 03/19/89, which is clearly better and isn't a carryjob at all. In fact what really makes the match is how much Hokuto really doesn't care about Chigusa being so popular and on her retirement run, she takes the fight straight to her and really wants to win. Hokuto has a bunch of other great or at least really good stuff in 1989 I've listed above, Rude's 1988 other than the Steamboat match is a hold load of nothing. #6 Year Hokuto's 1997 vs. Rude's 1987 I know I'm being silly now. There's still a lot of Hokuto in 1997 I haven't seen yet and she's clearly past her best, but by her standards that still means having the odd great match. The 04/12/97 KAORU match rules and is probably the 2nd best match of KAORU's career. If you watch a lot of KAORU you'll know she's a great athlete but a bit of mindless spot machine, so you have to give Hokuto a lot of credit for having a match with her with so much character and grit to it. The 02/16/97 tag with Chigusa vs. KAORU and Maiko Matsumoto is a match I only saw a few weeks ago and is a complete textbook case of how to work a veterans vs. a young underdog in a tag match with how they cut off the ring and just bully the shit out of Matsumoto. This match is better than any match Rick Rude had outside 1992 nevermind 1987, where all I can think of really is his performance in the Survivor Series tag. Plus we should throw in Hokuto's match against Madusa at the Great American Bash, which is one of the best Madusa matches ever and she's way past her best at this point. #7 Year Hokuto's 1995 vs. Rude's 1986 Getting more stupid. If I'm missing something feel free to shout at me but I have Rude's 1986 as 'had a good match with Wahoo McDaniel at Starrcade and I can't think of a single other thing he did and I've got nothing in my notes. Hokuto was a part-timer and struggling with injuries in 1995, so she "only" has a Top 100 contender against Manami Toyota on 09/02/95, which is also better than any Rick Rude match not in 1992. She has a couple of really good Joshi tags in WCW which are worth checking out, especially just to see how they get themselves over with an audience who didn't seem interested in them at all at the start of the match. There's another great match with Mima Shimoda on 30/08/95, which is probably the best singles match of Shimoda's career (she was better in tags). I can't even rank Rick Rude years after this because there's really just nothing but I could honestly keep going with Hokuto just to compare: #8 Year Hokuto's 1990 I feel like I may be snubbing this year a bit because she looks like such a fantastic wrestler throughout, it just lacks in really great matches but you have to look at the level of her opponents here. She doesn't feud with Bull until 1991-92, and those two are by far the best wrestlers in AJW in 1990. Hokuto looks really impressive in the 01/04/90 tag with Hotta against Etsuko Mita and Toshiyo Yamada, which is almost great. The Manami match on 06/17/90 was looking like it was about to turn into a great match until Hokuto got injured (yes I know), but they have an actually great match on 08/19/90 to make up for that. I'd also recommend the Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bison Kimura 12/09/90 as a match which isn't quite great, but it totally would have been if Hokuto had better/maybe just more experienced wrestlers to work with as she's again clearly the stand out here. #9Year Hokuto's 2001 This is mostly just the one match, vs Meiko Satomura on 04/29/01. I know not everyone loves it but imo it's a Top 50 match ever. And still even at this point, Hokuto is the one driving the match narrative and the biggest performer. It's not a carryjob, but it would be many, many years before Meiko had anything even close to as good as this other than the Aja Kong matches. I don't want to sell her short though, as she also has a bunch of really good tags that build to this that should be watched. These are: 1. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 01/27/01 2. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura - 03/11/01 3. Akira Hokuto & KAORU vs. Lioness Asuka & Meiko Satomura - 04/15/01 4. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato - 04/22/01 These are all 3.5 or 3.75 Stars to me, with Hokuto being the #1 or #2 best performer in all of them. This is pretty good going considering the popular narrative is she's a washed up has-been almost 10 years past her peak at this point. #10 Year Hokuto's 1987 The match with the Glamour Girls is the only real standout as a match here, but she's spends almost the year in midcard tags which either didn't get much time or have been heavily clipped for TV so she doesn't have a chance to have much more. There's still enough to see she's a really good wrestler though and already has some of the best looking offense in the company. And even after then there's 1996 where she doesn't really do anything this year except have a MOTYC contender on 01/22/96 with Mima Shimoda against Double Inoue, which is easily better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989. But she only wrestles 17 matches all year so as she's injured. 2000? Again doesn't really do much of note except have a 4 Star match on 05/14/00 with Devil Masami against the Crush Gals (and Devil wasn't looking good here, Hokuto totally carried this), and then has an even better tag with Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato on 12/17/00, a totally crazy brawl with people being thrown down steps and everything and better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989 (and that's just if you really love that Warrior match, which I don't but I'll concede some people think it's great). So here's how I'd rank these years altogether: Hokuto's 1993 > Hokuto's 1992 > Rude's 1992 > Hokuto's 1991 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1994 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1997 > Hokuto's 1995 > Hokuto's 1990 > Hokuto's 2001 > Rude's 1989 > Rude's 1993 > Hokuto's 1987 > Hokuto's 2000 > Hokuto's 1996 > Rude's 1990 > Rude's 1988 > Rude's 1987 > Rude's 1986 Heh I didn't start writing this post intending to massacre Rick Rude like that, I actually like him, but if anyone ranking Rude and talks about how great his 1992 I don't see how they can even contemplate not ranking Hokuto higher. Easily in my Top 30 at this point and might go quite a bit higher than that.

Bruiser Brody has a whole WON Award named after him for something he wasn't even very good at.

Alright no more putting this off. I've watched I think every match these two are in up to this point now so it's time to do my big write up of why this match is so great. Now naturally I can't really do this without spoiling how it all goes down so... Go watch the match! First, let's set the scene. This is not the first time these two have wrestled each other. This is a rivalry that goes back all the way to Chigusa Nagayo's TV debut in January 1981, where our hero put in a valiant effort but is severely outmatched and barely lasts 7 minutes before succumbing to Devil's ferocious onslaught. [1] For Devil, the 16 year old Chigusa was probably just another rookie off the conveyor belt for her to abuse and squash, this period of AJW TV is full of similar 'Devil squashes a rookie' matches, probably none as historically significant in retrospect though. Fast forward to 1985, Chigusa is now the most popular wrestler in the company, which is entering another boom period and is running Budokan Hall for the first time since 1979. The big selling point of the show is each of the WWWA Tag Champions the Crush Gals are going for AJW's top singles belts. Lioness Asuka is challenging Jaguar Yokota for the WWWA Singles Championship (aka 'The Red Belt') in the main event, meanwhile Chigusa is challenging her old tormenter Devil Masami for the All Pacific Championship ('The White Belt') in the semi-main. Chigusa has had many matches with Devil Masami by this point, and has lost all of them. Just in the last year the Crush Gals were defeated in the 1984 Tag League Finals by the team of Devil Masami and Jaguar Yokota, [2] and Chigusa was pinned by Devil two months previously in the 1985 Japan Grand Prix. [3] Earlier in the show the Crush Gals come out to perform their single 'Tokyo Explosion Girls', and Chigusa makes her intentions known to the audience: The entrances are both fantastic. Chigusa gets a Goldberg-style entrance being flanked by several cops and fans screaming CHI-GU-SA in time with her entrance music. You need to watch it with the sound up to appreciate how awesome and unique an atmosphere it is. Devil comes out second with the most stern mean face ever and is carrying a purple sword like a Disney villain, but Chigusa stares her down from the second turnbuckle and seems to never take her eyes off her, as if to signal how serious she is in taking her down this time. Worth noting at this point that Devil isn't as clear cut a heel at this point as she was in previous years. The top heel spot in the company has been taken by Dump Matsumoto, who previously was a member of Devil's very authoritarian stable the 'Devil Corps', but went off her own way to start a totally different heel group of rule-breaking hooligans, leaving Devil on her own. We then get a few minutes of talking from the commissioner and the ring announcer and Devil handing the belt over. There's a great contrast in body language before the match even starts. After a brief staredown, Devil's fairly chill about the whole thing. She takes her time walking around to her corner undoing her hairband, getting out of her entrance outfit and then does some stretches, this isn't that big a deal to her. Chigusa on the other hand is completely still throughout this whole thing. She just stands there in the middle of the ring staring at Devil all through the pre-match ceremonies like she's not even aware they're happening. 100% focus. This contrast in mentalities is a narrative thread that'll develop throughout the match. The match starts with the wrestlers circling each other, trying to find an opening. Chigusa is a bit more feisty and goes for some kicks, which don't really land properly as Devil just evades them and then successfully hits the first big takedown of the match. Chigusa gets to the ropes quickly and isn't really damaged by it, but it's not the best start for her. She cockily kips up and goes straight back to circling Devil, projecting that she's unphased by what just happened. She then hits a takedown of her own and neatly grabs a hold of Devil to try lock in her signature Scorpion Deathlock. It doesn't work, Devil blocks being turned over and slowly drags her way to the ropes. This starts another narrative thread that'll develop throughout the match, Chigusa targetting Devil's shoulder to weaken her attempts to block being turned over into a Scorpion Deathlock. The next section is almost all matwork with Devil dominating. Even though Chigusa is able to score a couple more takedowns, she can't really capitalise on them because Devil's able to break out/reverse any hold applied to her and just grind Chigusa down on the mat. Her holds looks really vicious and gritty and she also has some of the best facial expressions in wrestling ever here. All Chigusa's able to do to stay in this is find openings to escape the grappling and back off. She can never actually gain an advantage. Part of the psychology here is that the point of the holds isn't just to target a body part, they're an attempt to gain an advantageous leverage position in order to hit a suplex/throw, which are treated as big bombs that can potentially end a match so they have to be avoided. About five minutes into the grappling, Devil twists and turns Chigusa into position to hit a double arm underhook suplex, she manages to half-lift her to horrified screams from the crowd before Chigusa blocks it by flailing her feet around. People should note that scream from the crowd, these schoolgirls totally get the psychology and that that was a dangerous moment. Devil's just wearing Chigusa down now, trying to find that opening to turn her nasty limb-wrenching matwork into bomb-throwing. After a few more minutes of this we get a neat transition when Devil maybe gets a bit impatient and pulls Chigusa up to try hit a vertical suplex when she hadn't really maneuvered Chigusa into position for it this time. Chigusa blocks the suplex attempt with relative ease, Devil realises she's not gonna be able to hit it so tries to surprise Chigusa with a flash-rollup, but for the first time in the match Chigusa manages to successfully counter Devil on the mat and goes straight to work on that shoulder to set up the Scorpion hold. She knows what her gameplan is. Chigusa is able to keep hold of Devil's shoulders for a good couple of minutes now wrenching them in and out. She even manages to hit a throw after Devil tries to power her way out of this but opens herself up to the suplex in the process. This is the first time in the match she's really been trouble, in fact I'm pretty sure she's never been worked over on the mat by Chigusa like this in any of their matches to date. In a sign that she's now feeling a bit threatened, Devil does something illegal for the first time in the match by biting Chigusa's wrist to try force her to break the hold. Chigusa loudly protests and the referee counts her, Devil then gives this lovely look of disdain. Devil then brute forces herself up, spins Chigusa around and kicks her in the back of the legs knocking her forward and breaking the hold, another nice logical transition. There's an added venom to Devil's offense now as she regains control of the match. She's now mixing in the holds with a flurry of kicks and stomps, just pounding Chigusa into the mat. This goes well until she decides to get extra mean and tries thrusting Chigusa face-first into the ring post, but Chigusa blocks it, runs Devil's face into the opposite ring post and then unloads on her with a flurry of kicks and stomps of her own in a really cathartic comeback. Devil covers up after the first couple of hits land, with shocked facial expressions expressing that she wasn't expecting Chigusa to retaliate with such viciousness. Devil's still a bit stuck in seeing Chigusa as the young girl she could abuse for fun in years prior and is learning the hard way that her opponent has it in her to get pretty vicious too. Chigusa then drags Devil out of the corner and goes right back to grinding down that shoulder and has an even more ruthless look of determination on her face now as she pulls back on it with Devil noticably in a lot of pain. Chigusa really keeps wrenching that shoulder into all kinds of awkward angles while Devil tries various rolls to try and get out of this predicament of Chigusa's legs being wrapping around her head while hyper-extending her arm. After another minute she manages to escape by rolling Chigusa over to her front and pulling herself free from underneath her in the process. Now, this is the one transition in the match I'm not entirely happy with. It looked a bit too easy for Devil to escape like that, even if she is established as the superior matworker. Devil then does a nice little sell of the shoulder work for the benefit of the audience (Chigusa can't see her do this, which is a plus) while keeping a hold of Chigusa's legs. I need to take a break to remind everyone now that this crowd is HOT and is shouting CHI-GU-SA for her to get out almost as loud as they were during her entrance. Devil realises that Chigusa's close to the ropes and about to reach them, so she pre-empts this by pulling Chigusa up and hitting her with some more kicks and knees to the gut. But Chigusa fires up and throws some kicks and then a big knee to the gut of her own! We have our first straight strike exchange of the match. Again, it's Chigusa directly retaliating and Devil being caught by surprise that she would react like that. She covers up with her arms again and has a slightly shocked expression while trying to block Chigusa's flurry but is unable to hold it back. Chigusa then makes a mistake though. She drags Devil up and appears to go for a piledriver, but Devil hasn't been weakened up enough for a move like that to work so she just counters by brute forcing Chigusa up and drops her to the ground before retaking the advantage by hitting a piledriver herself and gets a two count. Skip forward a couple of minutes though and Devil makes a mistake by easing up on a hold to punch Chigusa's back in, but this gives her a chance to escape and spins around quickly into an abdominal stretch. Chigusa later grounds Devil and just boots her in the back then repeatedly knees her head in. Devil is then dazed enough for Chigusa to hoist her up and finally hit her with that piledriver for a two count. Game on. Chigusa so often retaliating by hitting Devil with the same offense sends the message that they are close to equals now. Chigusa's unloading on Devil now with some really strong kicks. Devil catches one of them attempts to counter into a Figure Four, but Chigusa catches her foot on the way down and places it behind her own head to stop Devil locking it in. What a weird way to counter a Figure Four! But it seems to work for a while. Now, while they're in the Figure Four Devil again does something really clever with her selling. When Chigusa is facing her, she stares her down with eyes of steel locking in the hold. The very second Chigusa turns her face to the mat and isn't look at Devil anymore, Devil grabs her hurt shoulder and sells the damage. She wants the audience to know it's hurt, but she doesn't want Chigusa to see she's hurt! How many people have the wits to sell like that? It's stuff like that which is why watching this match multiple times is so rewarding, it has so much depth and richness to it you'll spot new details every time. And we've all seen Ric Flair NWA Title defences so we know where this is going! I still think it's neat they got this spot into an 80s Joshi match though; in fact there's a whole bunch of stuff here that feels like it was influenced from elsewhere but doesn't feel shoehorned in at all. Chigusa gets to the ropes after turning Devil over and the referee forces a break. Devil is not finished with that leg though, and she's going to up the ante. For the first time in the match we now go outside the ring as Devil brutally punches Chigusa right in the knee from the outside and then throws her over the announce table and just kicks the hell out of her while she's all tangled up. This is Devil falling back into her older tactics when she was a straight heel. Look back to that 1981 match and you'll see one of her trademarks was taking the match to the outside and beating up her opponent around the announce table. Chigusa makes it back into the ring at the count of 17 (20 for a count out), only for Devil to grab her by the head and bounce it off the ring post again. Either she's so pissed off at Chigusa successfully fending her off for so long she's decided to regress into outright abuse, or she's going for a cheap count out victory. Maybe both! She then does a dive to keep Chigusa from getting back in the ring. AWA King Of The Mountain Devil Masami coming through, heh. Chigusa does eventually get back in the ring, battered and exhausted though and unable to stop Devil from hitting more offense, now targetting her back. Most of Devil's offense is targetting the back throughout the match actually, but she occasionally goes for the leg instead. It's all the back now, she's pinning Chigusa down and just hitting her with punches, knees, anything she can get in and whenever Chigusa tries to escape, Devil uses her momentum against her to hit a backbreaker. There's a psychology here that the more 'convoluted' moves are more damaging, but there's a risk in going for them as it's easier for your opponent to escape and counter them. Devil gets a bit too ambitious and allows Chigusa to slip out, and to the absolute delight of the crowd she pulls off the same takedown from the opening moments of the match and tries to lock in the Scorpion Deathlock. Such a great babyface. But alas! Again, Devil is still not worn down enough to stop her blocking it. This is such a good version of a hope spot. Chigusa gives up on the Scorpion and we have a bit of a reset. Both wrestlers seem to decide that they need to hit some more bombs, but they're both wrestling defensively so we're not actually going to see many get hit. There's an awesome struggle over a backdrop which goes on for like 30 seconds, and then we have both wrestlers squaring off and they both agree to go for a knuckle lock which lasts a minute, and you can see what's happening is both wrestlers are trying to leverage themselves into a position to quickly hit a big suplex. And the crowd is LOUD for all of this. They are loudly chanting CHI-GU-SA for a minute long knuckle lock spot! And then scream in excitement when it's Chigusa who manages to quickly switch into a German suplex for a two count. This is a decisive moment in the match as taking that big throw seems to knock the wind out of Devil and she's a lot more weak in struggling against Chigusa's next suplex (all the suplexes are a struggle in this match!) and can barely defend herself from the strikes that follow. We then get a big climatic moment as Chigusa flying spin kicks Devil to the ground, grabs her foot and finally on the third attempt and 25 minutes into the match, she locks in that Scorpion Death Lock! The Scorpion doesn't win Chigusa the match though. It's not a finisher (in fact finishers don't really exist in 80s Joshi) just a signature move, but it's a done Devil a lot of damage before she crawls to the ropes, after which she's just laid out of the floor twitching in pain. Chigusa is feeling ruthless though, she kicks Devil right in the back until she knocks her straight out of the ring. And then in an incredibly audacious move, she takes a page out of Devil's playbook and hits a dive on her to the outside and goes back in for the referee to count Devil out! Seriously, the cheek! Devil's not gonna lose to that, she beats the 20 count and climbs into the ring. Nah that's not quite what happened. She STABS HER PURPLE DISNEY VILLAIN SWORD INTO THE APRON AND PULLS HERSELF UP WITH IT WITH IT WEARING A FACE OF PURE MURDER !! "DO YOU KNOW WHO I FUCKING AM!? HOW DARE YOU PULL THAT SHIT ON ME!?" This is just so awesome. Devil's turned super Satanic now just with facial expressions like she's trying to terrify Chigusa into regretting what she just did. But Chigusa just stands there right in the middle of the ring and bravely stares Devil down the whole time just like she did before the match started. Devil then cuts a sad figure. She looks so dejected that her going into Satanic Sword-Wielding mode didn't have the desired effect on this little shit, and just meekly hands the sword back to a second. She seems diminished all of a sudden. She's such a great actress. Of course she's not beaten though. She just goes through a big change in attitude after this moment, and now we get another reset with Devil taking Chigusa more seriously than ever before. She approaches very cautiously now with her hands blocking her face like she's in a boxing match, as if to say "you are indeed a worthy foe." Devil's now focused as Chigusa was from the beginning, not keeping her eyes off her opponent. Chigusa's got her hands up too. They're actually going to start throwing hands now, we're almost 30 minutes in and we haven't even got to the boxing sections of the match yet. Memphis here we come! We've just passed the 30 minute call now and we're now in absolutely epic territory. Both wrestlers are exhausted. The struggles over the holds to gain leverage now are a lot shorter as they barely have the strength to prevent the other from hitting big moves if they're caught now, so they're just keeping away from each other and throwing a quick bomb attempt whenever they spot the opportunity. A big advantage of this style not having finishers is nothing feels like it SHOULD end the match yet, but still plenty of things feel like they COULD be the finish. They're both so wobbly legged you can't see them surviving much more. Their standard offense now is just throwing punches rather than anything more elaborate as we saw earlier, and it totally suits the mood. Both wrestlers realise now there is serious pride on the line. Devil will not be humiliated losing her title to this upstart who she went into this thing underestimating, and Chigusa will not let slip this opportunity to beat the woman who's been bullying and stomping all over her since literally her first televised match. And that's it. All they have left from this point on is punches and kicks, and even if they land one they're expending so much of the energy they have left it's like it's hurting them too. Just nothing but pure determination left until their bodies fail them. Chigusa lands the last blow knocking Devil down, but Chigusa also collapses to the mat in exhaustion. She crawls over a few paces, presumably to attempt a cover as Devil appears totally out of it, but she falls down too and the referee starts a 10 count. Chigusa looked to be closer to making it to her feet, but neither wrestler beats the count so we get a double knockout. As satisfying a double KO as there could ever be. At least Chigusa kept her promise and didn't lose today. In the post match, after several minutes recovering on the ground being given water by their seconds, Devil asks for the microphone. She says "Today... we both got knocked out so I keep the title but..." The ending is kinda corny but I don't care, it's touching. Chigusa just gave everything to physically destroy this woman, but all it takes then is for Devil to say probably the first nice thing about her ever, and Chigusa is overwhelmed with emotion and respectfully bows before her senior, and Devil acknowledges her. That's a win. I'm sure Chigusa left Budokan Hall with no regrets. Devil Masami left a babyface (this match also achieved a successfully executed turn!), and just a few months later would wrestle Dump Matsumoto for the WWWA Championship with the crowd 100% behind her. This match is a beautiful piece of art. Such a riposte to the notion that Joshi was all about Manami Toyota style go go go athletic movefests with no real narrative. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76QECxeTzA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxbL7JUQ1_Q [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTOjfdnEZUw

My favourite bit of stupidity about this match was criticising Roman Reigns for "not being strong enough" to do the tombstone. That's totally what went wrong there... I watched this Wrestlemania with a bunch of non-fans who'd never seen an Undertaker match before. They seemed really into it as a "mercy killing" style story, more than the actual wrestling fans heh.

The GOAT stipulation:

It's not insane when the invading monster shooter had previously walked out on the company angrily complaining about having to lose matches, later held up another company's world title and was publicly in contact with UFC about a comeback. Pretty sensible really that Vince wanted assurances Brock would do business before putting him over his Top Guy.

The only 'criteria' I think should be insisted on is that this has to be based on footage so you can explain your picks by pointing to a wrestler's performances on film and talk about what you like/didn't like about them. It's no fun someone saying Ed Strangler Lewis is on their list because some old wrestlers said in books that he was great so I'm gonna believe them even though there's no proof. That's like putting a 1930s movie lost in WW2 bombings on a "Top 100 list" because the reviews at the time said it was amazing. We know from cases with footage that a wrestler's reputation doesn't always live up to the hype (e.g. Bruiser Brody). The main purpose of these projects really is it's a vehicle for discovering lots of great wrestling, like I would never have become a big fan of Mariko Yoshida if it weren't for people eloquently pushing her case in 2016, and her case is entirely "just go watch her matches!". If there's no footage to check out (e.g. someone ranking Hogan for being so famous) then there's no point. Other than that, people should be free to choose their own criteria because what exactly makes a wrestler "great" is a big part of the discussions. For example I'm probably a bigger John Cena supporter than most on here. Do I think John Cena is a great technician? Absolutely not. I've never heard anyone claim he is; we all accept his execution is at least a bit sloppy at times. The real interesting debate is how much a flaw like that actually matters. I'm happy for people to have all kinds of eccentric criterias so long as they can justify them in good faith, in fact this should be encouraged to open people's minds more. I see absolutely no problem with @Dav'oh ranking PAC above Jumbo, his explanation was in the spirit of the project. Oh and on promos, I think taking them into consideration should be allowed as it's still footage and part of a wrestler's performance. Whether you should include them or not is something to be debated; people can decide for themselves when they make their list. I think it's fair to make the argument that they should not be taken into consideration, but it shouldn't be imposed on people as a rule.

More wordy answers please. The biggest draw of this forum is seeing people explain their views with evidence and nuance where most of the internet has turned into 160 character Twitter discussions which don't really teach you anything.

Also here's a good winning streak that ended well: The Shield's undefeated run in 6-man tags from 2012-13, that ended when Daniel Bryan tapped out Seth Rollins in the Bryan/Kane/Orton vs. The Shield match. That big win was the start of Bryan's main event push that culminated in him beating Cena at Summerslam.

Also Survivor Series 1996 was the first time Austin was ever pinned on WWF TV. All his previous losses were by DQ and he lost a strap match to Savio Vega with the four corner rule thing, not by being pinned. I remember watching 1996-97 a few years ago and noticing Austin was way more protected from the start than I'd thought.

They're really not the same as Aja generally plays fair when she feels her opponent is respectful of her. See the Kudo match for example. Dump always relentlessly cheated no matter what.

Bryan/Punk's influence isn't really about them being smaller workrate guys (and Punk isn't even that small), it's that they came from the indies to being WWE main-eventers when WWE didn't see indies as a place where stars could ever come from. Being a pushed act on WCW TV for years is a much easier sell.

Gonna be a nerd here. Bryan debuted on October 4th 1999.