Tetsujin

I don't get the "he can bore you, it's your opinion, but that's on you, objectively he's one of the GOATs" card. I know a lot of people see him as such, but it's not like alienation doesn't exist. Generations of fans and wrestlers have been educated to like the prototype king's road formula, even if it's a very monotone, souless and artificial adaptation of it, like most Okada big matches... the Scurll one being the clearest example, not because it was bad (in fact I really liked it) but because they put the whole show in danger just because they had to do the Okada formula step by step, no matter what. That's his career in a nutshell. The New Beginning 2020 match against Taichi is another great example: he just lost the title to Naito, finally, so he was free of the big match gimmick for a long time, and he had a personal, almost bloody, rivalry with Taichi... Looked like a really cool opportunity to reinvent and keep yourself fresh as a wrestler... and then they worked the typical Okada main event and he won. It's just almost always the same, and that "almost" doesn't compensate enough, for me at least. Also, his small variations have been to worse. He had a pretty fucking cool finishing hold (I don't even remember it's name now), left it for no reason, and years later came with a stupid cobra clutch to bore the living shit out of people. He had this cool "cocky rich brat" attitude, and he became less and less character driven by time. He had one Rainmaker that was an insta kill, but now he has multiple Rainmaker versions, each one looking worse than the last, but don't worry, the only one that will get him the win is the original Rainmaker so why bother anyway!?!? He had one fantastic Tombstone as a signature spot that was basically the perfect set up for his Rainmaker, so he could build tension around wheter he will execute it or not (the struggle around tombstones are part of what makes most of the Tanahashi matches amazing, imo), but now he has a regular Tombstone, the spinning Tombstone, and apron versions of both. None of them mean anything now. Hell, the first time he did the spinning Tombstone was because Omega pushed him to surpass his fucking limits at WK 11, and it felt huge, but look at it now. It's really frustrating.

I'm really intrigued by this guy. Between his consistency as a tag and gimmick match worker, and some really good performances in singles as well when given the chance, he might be on my list too, but I haven't seen enough of him yet. Definitely one of the guys I want to focus on.

I'm totally on board with this. That said, if Sting wanted to go crazy and have a brief heel run before retiring, I'm 100% sure he would make it work, specially when people love Darby that much. Heel Joker Sting in AEW sounds hilarious.

Yeah that match was pretty fun. Great tv content. Also, Bryan-Mox has to be one of the defining rivalries of AEW. Both the company and the wrestlers should be ambitious with it, because these two are fucking stars and it's a super fresh pairing. And right now neither one should go for the main title because Hangman's reign just started, so I would make it a mid-long term rivalry.

Mox is a draw. He should have stayed champion for most 2021. Give him a huge storyline (but keep him away from any Elite members please) and then throw him against Hangman.

Yeah totally agree. The Taker rivalry as a whole is stellar, the Mania match is a wonderful Edge performance but the HIAC is wherew they put everye single element from their feud together in a perfectly balanced way. As I said, Edge has always been pretty great at crafting gimmick matches.

He has definitely looked worse each year since 2018. Sometimes he just wrestle in autopilot mode and sometimes he has looked like he couldn't go anymore, just a broken guy. His big matches are basically the same since 2019 with only a couple of exceptions, and no, the Shingo and Ospreay matches this year aren't those exceptions. He has become so much boring and predictable, It is just not fun to watch him.

His matches with Seth Rollins are amazing. A really well made trilogy. Probably the best rivalry of the business in the pandemic era. I've always loved him and think he's painfully underrated by these kind of circles around the IWC. He has a much larger resume of pretty good to excellent matches that you may think at first, has some really good performances as a chicken shit heel or bastardly hardcore heel, really great gimmick match worker and tag team guy, was great as a babyface midcarder in SmackDown and as the top heel of the company. He helped make John Cena like no other. His rivalry withw Taker is among the greatest of all time. And this recent run of his is being mindblowing, seriously. He looks even better than at his prime.

The thing with Misawa is that he's a peak contender, but his peak happens to be one of the longest and highest of anyone ever. But outside of, I would say, 94-03, he's not that consistently great. His 80s stuff is not remarkable outside a couple of matches, it's really surprising how little he looks like the next big thing. His early unsmaked Misawa run is definitely a big improve, he's really good by then, but I think it's a kind of overrated part of his career when it comes to ringwork: the Jumbo matches are pretty good, but no one can compete with all the other 90s AJPW classics, and his role in the big six-man tags is usually little, only there yo make his signature moves, have a brief clash withw Jumbo, and taking the win or getting distracted to allow his team to lose. He's never one of the best performers in those matches. His old Misawa NOAH run is pretty good and something I've learn to appreciate more with time, but there are still more wrestlers with a stronger post-peak careers. I would say all three other Pillars are better than him in these late 80s-early 90s, and mid-00s runs. It's Misawa's legendary peak stuff what gives him a chance of being ahead of them in an overall list, imho. With that in mind, I find far more easier to chose between Bryan and Misawa than, let's say, Bryan and Kobashi. Bryan has been consistently great throughout his whole career, in far more different scenarios and styles. He isn't an all-time level seller like Misawa, but he definitely is toe to toe with him on offense, and I would say offense is the strongest Misawa trait for his case (other than his ridiculous peak), while for Bryan's I wouldw say versatility, ande there's no chance for Misawa to close the gap between them for that (as with most japanese contenders). Right now both feel like top 10 locks. But Misawa feels "just" a top 10 lock, while Bryan is challenging for the top spot.

Yeah Cash has becoming better. He's in better shape, also. I think both are pretty great wrestlers that deserve nomination.

Wyatt's 2014 Rumble and Miz's 2018 SummerSlam are both definitely great matches. And Bryan also has really good stuff with The Fiend years later, something nobody else did.

For WWE, it has to be Undertaker.

I have no issue with people arguing against anyone's case for the top 100 at their threads, if it's done with respect. I don't think James has enough high ceiling to be considered (the same happens with some of the most memorable knockouts like Awesome Kong or Gail Kim), but I'm totally on board with the idea of reivindicate her as a good bridge between the awful USA's womens wrestling situation and the horsewomen booms (again, same with the knockouts division); she's definitely a much more interesting wrestler to remember and focus on than Stratus and Lita.

Micahels had a really strong year with his Rumble performance, his Mania match against Flair, the Jericho rivalry and being super consistent on TV. I don't know if he'd be my choice but that has to be his best year since 1997.

It's probably HBK for me as well, but most of the people Micro mentioned are pretty god damn close, and I would add the Pillars (specially Taue).

I'm going with Hiromu. First of all, this year was stupid and probably the less modern wrestling I've seen since I'm a grown up fan. So, I'm not an expert here. But Hiromu had a great match with Ospreay, then the super fun Liger retirement match, then he participated in the New Japan Cup and carried Tomoaki Honma to shades of his lost greatness before his fatal injury, a fun comedy match with Yano and a blaster with Ishii. Then he carried fucking EVIL to his best singles match ever, and his performance was so good that he managed to make the japanese crowd go insane for his nearfalls, not able enough to resist their cheers for him even with the COVID restrictions and all that bullshit. Hell, it was obviously a transition title match, and Hiromu was a Jr (and the Jr Champ!), there was no freaking way he would win... but when the match happened, Hiromu bursted his ass of to make us believe he could. And the match itself is pretty strong, which is shocking considering everything else about EVIL's heel run has been from mediocre to absolute disgusting. His matches with Ishimori were pretty good, his team with BUSHI was great and had a really fun match with Desperado and Kanemaru (forgot the date and/or event, though), and then he finished his year with an amazing BOSJ run and a BOSJ Finals with Desperado that... Well, we all know that match was an instant classic, the best COVID-era match of the year.

Aja Kong. Three near perfect all-time classics against Hotta, Toyota, and the Queendom tag (the Hokuto rivalry might be the best of this year to me), nobody peaked higher than her in this year excepto Hokuto the few shows she worked. Bret Hart had a really strong year too, even working with low-level guys at WWE most of the time.

Yeah his NJPW run has made him amazing. He always brings so much fresh air to the New Japan formula, both in singles and tags, against elite level workers like Tana, Naito, Ibushi and Ishii, but also carrying less talented workers like SANADA, EVIL, Fale or YOSHI HASHI. Also, his promos are hilarious.

Misawa, definitely. Kawada is close, but Misawa's peaks are undeniable both in singles and tags. It's probably his best year ever.

Flair. I mean c'mon.

I would say Satánico. Not a big fan of the Cochisse match, but his fights with Atlantis, Súper Astro and Shiro Koshinaka are extremely fun.

It's pretty god damn close between Kobashi, Hokuto and Hansen. I wanna include Aja Kong, Tenryu and Kandori on the conversation as well, but those other three had all-time great years.

Shibata had a killer NEVER Championship reign with great stiff matches against Ishii, some WOS-NJPW hybrid cool matches with ZSJ (helping him to achieve his peak in New Japan), both reDragon members, the Third Generation (gotta LOVE the first Nagata match the most), Riddle, Hero, giving EVIL his best matches, an amazing G1 match with Naito... A really, really strong year. Underrated WOTYC for 2016.

Now that the year is over, I can 100% sure say that Bryan Danielson is my WOTY. Shingo, Reigns, Tanahashi and Rollins (maybe Desperado as well) all came close, but what Dragon accomplished both in his last WWE run and in his absolute banger of current AEW run is just something else. He excels at every situation and environment you throw at him, wheter you put him at the main event of WrestleMania in a triple threat match, or a short tv match with Evil Uno. And, boy, this "cocky-to-asshole living legend" gimmick he's been developing lately is the cherry on top. The GOAT.

Maybe one of the big Portland boys like Buddy Rose, Roddy Piper or Rick Martel.