Boss Rock

This kinda sums Bret up for me as well. Really good at what he did especially given the position he was in. But for a top 10 or even top 20 candidate, I feel you should have a huge laundry list of great matches and I don't think Bret quite has that. And while his peaks are high, I feel there are others who have even higher ones.

In some form it will be: Kenta Kobashi Mitsuharu Misawa Toshiaki Kawda Stan Hansen Bryan Danielson Genichiro Tenyru Akira Taue Jun Akiyama Jushin Liger Terry Funk

Definitely.

Thanks for the update!

Curious what other WWE matches folks might recommend apart from Zayn and this recent A.J. match. I'm largely of the belief that his WWE run really hurts his case even if he did have a solid argument for best in the world during the first half of the 2010's. Feels more like a top 150-200 candidate to me.

Good presence and an awesome theme.

So not only are EVIL, Finlay, Maloney, Conners, and Kidd likely on their way out, supposedly Hiromu is as well. Supposedly NJPW wanted him to move to heavyweight but he declined, which seems odd.

He's top 15 for me. One of the most consistent big match workers of the 21st century. All-timer babyface and a sneaky good heel when the time called for it. The last 2-3 years were definitely rough, but there's still at the very least a phenomenal 14-15 year run.

Couldn't tell you for sure but apparently he got a ton of boos today at New Year's Dash.

Holy crap Okada-Tanahashi was incredible. I was expecting it to be good, but that honestly felt like a top 5 match in their entire rivalry.

Looks like they're doing Chris Brooks-El Phantasmo as well.

I don't think he was necessarily in the shape to wrestle every night, but at the very least they could've done way more dates with him strictly doing promos.

Perhaps neither here nor there, but I've always found both guys' drawing power pretty comparable, relative to their respective promotions of course. Both guys stopped the bleeding, but you could probably point to other folks who really turned things around (Okada for NJPW, Cody for WWE).

According to Dave, Tenzan is also retiring at the Dome. At first I thought this was a case of being massively overshadowed, but taking advantage of a 55k crowd situation to retire is actually pretty smart. Hasn't wrestled since April anyway.

That would be funny as he had previously said he had no interest in wrestling for another Japanese promotion. Wonder if visa issues have been that bad.

I wasn't thrilled with Jack in the CC, but he acquitted himself very well against Okada.

One of the greatest utilitarian wrestlers ever.

I've been tuned out of NJPW for a few years now, but I honestly think Zack has been one of the most consistently great wrestlers of the last decade. He'll rank for me.

Darby is out of the CC and is being replaced by Jack Perry. I would have thought reforming Jurassic Express was TK acknowledging that Jack is not a good singles wrestler. Could have easily put Brody, Josh Alexander, Hechicero, Rush, Mortos, Ace Austin, Shelton, Bandido, Ricochet, or Yuta in there instead. Or give an ROH guy like Lee Moriarity or Lee Johnson a chance.

I actually kinda warmed up to the Righteous a bit when they actually got TV time on Collision. Mostly Dutch being a pretty solid big guy, but Vincent's snapping entrance was catchy.

Kinda sounds like GRAPPL.

Harley's not a great wrestler, but I find her to be easily one of the most entertaining acts on the roster.

Not making my ballot but definitely a guy I've always found very cool and fun to watch.

As someone who actually thinks his AEW run has been relatively inoffensive, no I don't care to see him back. Was never needed and added nothing.

I had seen quite a bit of Dick Togo before he came to NJPW in 2020, but imagine being told that the guy farting around with House of Torture is one of the greatest ever.