Tetsujin

That's a superb tournament right there. I would have put Okada/Takeshita on the same league just to add more uncertainity, and I really wanted heel García to make it, but other than those two nitpicks this is an absolute gem of a C2, holy.

From AEW, I'd say Moxley has somewhat strong chances to make it next year; as for the "not yet" part, I believe Ospreay, Darby, Hangman and MJF are already on their way to be strongly considered by 2036, and Takeshita, Fletcher and Daniel García have all the potential in the world to join them.

PPV was a bit weird to me. Every match delivered, yet there was little to no cohesion at all. If you watch any of these matches in a vacuum, It will feel awesome, but when you put seven or eight awesome matches together, it gets tiresome sooner than later. It's a shame both world title matches had almost no heat at all. I honestly would prefer matches that each complement the show on its way, instead of every match competing to be the most epic one of the show. The Casino Gauntlet was my motn, everyone shined in their roles and I would specially call Ricochet for one of the best performances of his career. He was to this match what Flair was to the 1992 Rumble, only on (even more) cocaine. I would also like to point out how experimental Mox/KOR felt, the crowd wasn't really with them most of the times but it was a match that tried to educate them into new forms of northamerican wrestling and I hope more wrestlers with their spotlight do the same kind of stuff, so eventually northamerican crowds can get invested in holds, counter holds, quick pin attempts and stuff like that. The show also had very questionable booking choices. FTR beating Brodido is definitely not bad, but the upcoming transition to Edge & Christian is. Darby going from making Mox submit at the main event to losing to PAC at the opener is very weird an dissapointing, and I know that that result and Mox tapping against KOR again are both setting up the DR being better without Mox and maybe even having PAC as the new leader or whatever, but that's an approach I don't see anyone benefiting from (other than babyface Mox wanting revenge). The DR are not gonna be better without Mox, guys. And then the main event. I love Joe to death, but this didn't feel a right way to crown him again. No, I don't think Hangman necessarily needed a 300 day long reign (well, maybe I do, but that's besides the point), but that doesn't mean it has to end so abruptly after such a cathartic coronation. Joe practically losing two times in the match and then winning because of help from a C Tier guy on the roster is insane to me, definitely not the way of presenting a new top heel champ. And you're telling me Swerve is coming back? Jesus Christ, just make Hangman vs Swerve for the belt. It's so easy. That's exactly what Hangman's reign needed: higher stakes challengers, rivalries that can feel the biggest act of the product right now. I don't know why instead they took the hard way with another heel champ hiding behind a stable, AGAIN. After only four months or so after Moxley dropped the title. Maybe Hangman takes it back from Joe anyway, but I don't think they're gonna hot potato the world title so, we'll see. Hey, at least they had Statlander winning against Moné. Such a shame it didn't felt as great of a moment as it should have due to the crowd being exhausted and the build up not being powerful enough (should have been the main event, but I guess Swerve's new nerfed theme song is more important).

She'll rank pretty highly for me as well, probably first half of the list. I find her undenniable. Not only because of the great and excellent interpromotional matches like the tag trilogy, the Hokuto match or Thunderqueen; she has the Street Fight with Kansai, her matches with Devil Masami in 1991 and, specially, 1993 against Undertaker Masami are amazing as well, and I fucking love the 1994 Chiggy singles match and the GAEA stuff I've seen from her. And that's with me still needing to watch the Shimoda bloodbath and some of her most recent stuff. Definitely awesome in every aspect of pro wrestling I've seen her approaching: fast paced workrate, classic title matches, 2/3 falls psychology, multiwoman matches ring awareness, crazy brawls, underdog babyface, fucking nasty asshole heel, comedy... She has it all.

Not wanting to be booked just for a three minute women match in an already problematic company when it comes to giving the women's division as much importance as the men's, doesn't sound bad to me at all. Funny how many "you should be grateful of any tv time you're given/you should do your job because that's why it's a job" people are appearing all of a sudden when that exact alienated mentality is the one that led Vince to build basically a cult of his personality in order to create the most horrendous wrestling product ever for decades. I guess we're still suffering the consequences even within the supposed main alternative. And yeah, it fucking sucks that Nox's girlfriend is a terf, but that's sadly besides the point. The point is that male wrestlers have far more opportunities to still make a name despite being booked in three minute squashes as nobodies, because wrestling is a men's world sadly. Women? Not so much. I'm happy there's a statement of "don't give me three minutes when you're giving men the other 57 minutes of the show" out here now. The ones making said statement? Couldn't care less, and if one's a terf then fuck her and hope I'll never ear from her again. But that's a different story.

I just thought that Mondo guy was taking advantage to gain some eyes on him. No big deal, everyone should do stuff like that to try and put themselves over. People obviously overreacted because tribalism and thinking they're smarter than anyone and kayfabe is dead, when it actually is heavily alive and stuff like this still proves it.

Oh, man. KUSHIDA is sooo great, and definitely a guy that should have had a classic career and a no brainer status for a project like this. Sadly, NJPW wanted to waste him and refused to mix him with the heavyweights (just to give Ospreay that distinction the very same year, duh) and he made the "mistake" of wasting time in WWE (get that bag man, whatever). He's still more than capable of doing great stuff today, his BOSJ match with Kosei Fujita is awesome and maybe the most unique match in current New Japan in ages. But he was a beast on his peak and it's a shame he didn't have the options to experience it better.

Mox/Darby might be the most uncomfortable match I've seen since the 1983 Hansen/Funk singles match. Holy shit.

The thing with Cena is that you can see the wrestling sicko he is and the kind of wrestler he would've been had he lived and worked in any other time and place than PG WWE. There's no way you watch the Umaga match and don't think "Cena would have been awesome in 80s MidSouth or Arena México". So, when he's having a great match thanks to a much better dance partner (the Lesnar match, for example) and he suddenly lives the moment and taps into that hidden potential, it definitely elevates the match into something else than just great. I believe that quality of him is what resonantes with more hardcore fans like ourselves, although I would agree it tends to overrating him, as it didn't happen as much and there's still a lot of bullshit to go through while examining his career. He's a "moments" kind of wrestler, both in the best and worst way possible. Obviously Bret is far better at everything inside the ring than Cena.

She'll be my highest woman on my list, and what finally gave her the edge over Hokuto (both in my top 10 atm) is these recent performances where she takes full advantage of her limitations as well as her usual strongs (the stifness and the character work). A lot of +20 years veterans would kill to be able to still deliver at the level current Aja with +30 years of experience is delivering. She's my #7 right now, but I can see her climb as high as #3.

What they have done with those two Mox/García matches + the turn on Darby is amazing classic pro wrestling right there. I'm as excited as I was when the original BCC turn on Danielson happened, I wanna ser where this all goes. There are tons of interesting dynamics to explore (Garcia-Darby, Garcia-Yuta, Garcia-Menard, García-Bryan...)

Mox/Garcia was awesome classic pro wrestling for everybody. Hope they do something with Dani and the Death Riders because they are acts that could complement each other perfectly. The FCA was terrific. One of the best Claudio performances in recent months, as this hasn't been his best year in terms of neither input nor output. Darby is obviously insane at his role and I can't wait for what he's about to do with Mox. Basically every segment and match of the show worked perfectly. E&C vs FTR should have been for the titles, but whatever, it still will be a great match. Every time Megan Bayne and Kris Statlander collide gives me joy. Mercedes' segment was good, but she needed some new challenger crushing her celebration and putting her through that table with all the belts. I guess they didn't do It because for whatever reason Windsor wasn't there and they don't wanna move from her yet (but they should, because sadly she's a charisma vacuum and not as good in the ring). I can see Wardlow being the next challenger for Hangman, and while that doesn't seem the most exciting program ever (specially considering the gigantic momentum Hangman is having atm), having Omega around could give it some life with some crazy tags and all star multitags in these next weeks, and it's not like Wardlow is gonna be more than a one month feud. Hurt Syndicate I believe has run its course, these last few weeks of the tag titles messiness has been a little bit embarrassing and they need to either compromise to put someone over when the time calls it (because they're a great act and I would love to keep them together, since I would hate a Lashley main event singles run), or leave (honestly Shelton could stay with MVP, but Lashley complicates things). If Athena didn't beat Toni, who will? Maybe a Death Rider Statlander?

It's gonna be hilarious when they use his retirement match at Saturday Night Main Event 2028 against Jey Uso to counter program the sickest All In London in Wembley Stadium card ever.

As somebody who knows absolutely nothing about Negro Navarro, I would love some info dump about him objectively developing two types of match still relevant today. Heavily interested.

That fucking main event was metal man. And that PPV ending. Holy shit. Fuck Jon Moxley forever.

Less and less people is watching New Japan but hey, the few that are staying support HOT so there's that I guess.

I'll just vote for the 100 nominated wrestlers I feel I like the most based of what I watch. Obviously *why* I like them can be pretty wide, but if I feel any posible reason for me to like them (for example, business success) doesn't affect my enjoyment of them as they wrestle, I won't take that reason into account. I will rate Stone Cold over Triple H, but not because of Austin being a better draw or because he had more success both in WCW and WWE than Hunter. Those things don't matter to me while I'm watching them wrestle.

You can trace back Gedo's awful booking run to WK 12 in 2018, but 2019 as a proper year was the first time NJPW felt out of its new golden age, both story wise and in ring. COVID only made far worse a situation that was already beginning to stink, except for Naito's two first months of reign before the pandemic.

This company is so doomed man.

I'm heavily behind the G1 this year, just watched Shingo/Takeshita today (and thank god I'm cherrypicking). The ringwork has not been bad, it actually has been kinda decent, but not enough for a company that feels this ice cold. And that's because the booking and character work are atrocious, but no surprise from Gedo there after all these years. By far the MVP of the tournament from what I've seen is, no surprise, Taichi, who feels like the only one in this dreadful company with a genuine connection with the crowd and who portrays himself in the ring as a true wrestling star. Shingo is not far behind, though. Takeshita is great but he's basically an outsider (I know, I know), so you know he's gonna get the Ibushi treatment until (if) he signs full time. O-Khan rules (most of the time) but there's no ambition behind his booking, so there's always low stakes on his matches. Tanahashi is doing surprisingly well and he's using his washed up body to his advantage, as per usual these last two years or so. ZSJ also rules, but sadly NJPW never knew how to make him feel big as their world champ. All young lions need to step up for good, Tsuji is the only one living to his potential right now, and other guys like Boltin and Newman still feel a little bit too underdevelopped. They're also, you know, non japanese. Kidd is a hit or miss and the injury didn't help (or did it? Maybe he gains more babyface love out of this one). David Finlay is weird, because he's a charisma vacuum and a Jay White cosplayer, but his matches tend to be some of my favourites, at least the ones where he ends up loosing. That leads me to EVIL. I'm an EVIL and SANADA denier (as singles acts, specially at the top of the card), always have been, and I can't believe they're still pushing for their stuff. I have not seen any Oiwa matches yet but I'm looking forward to what Tana can do for him next. If they continue with the dumb "G1 winner doesn't need to challenge at the Tokyo Dome show" thing, just give it to whoever, who should care. I know the G1 is prestigious enough by itself, but honestly... can you say that while looking at this roster, this booking and this output? I don't think you can. I guess Tsuji wins this and mayb takes the title from Zack, who I've been reading elsewhere he's not working as a draw (fuck you Gedo forever), and maybe there's enough time to book a Tsuji/Uemura rematch for the title at January 4th? Honestly I would push Taichi but he's gonna be busy carrying the company with Ishii as a tag team once the G1 is over.

Not even wrestling but he just had a great match (and an awesome performance specifically) with Último Guerrero this past friday. It's surreal how well he moves and how hard he goes still. We are almost 3/4 of 2025 done and Blue Panther has two MOTYC as of today.

I believe that's because usually pro wrestling teaches you about micwork much better than shoot sports. Even (some would say specially) WWE. Brock being decent there at best is still enough for him to be great on UFC at the mic.

Hell, I wonder why!

Not a chance. Very good wrestler that has been poorly treated by WWE for almost a decade now, with very few opportunities to really shine (and the ones he had not always worked, like his return to NXT). He's not the kind of guy that would shine despite the job they're given, he needs a better dance partner and a clear focus. His NJPW stuff is really good, that's for sure, and I loved his first NXT run as well when I was a teenager. There's no way there's only less than 100 guys better than him.

One of those guys I definitely need to watch more of. I really love his performances in the few matches I've seen (Windham, the long one with Reed, DiBiase, Kox) and I find him pretty unique in those.