Tetsujin

I'm not familiarized with André's work besides the Hansen, Killer Khan and Race matches, and his late WWE run, so I don't know what could be the argument for him ranking higher than Arn for anybody, other than "his best match (Hansen) is definitely better than Anderson's best match/matches". But I agree this would've been a hell of a match with both at their peaks.

I'm a big Shawn fan and right now he's a top 10 contender to me. And I do believe Toyota is a very accesible worker and one you could use to get introduced to joshi pretty easily. They're kinda similar because their respective characters rely on showing how awesome they can be before defeating their opponents, but they approach that character trait differently: for HBK is all about ego, but for Toyota is about fighting spirit. I think HBK's versatility is one of his biggest strenghts, specially considering gimmick matches. Unless he's paired with Triple H, you can always expect one of the best [insert random stipulation] matches if Shawn is in it: HIAC, LMS, Ladders, No DQ, Ironman, Triple Threats, Survivor Series, Rumble performances... He can be a fiery babyface or an asshole heel. He obviously will bump like a maniac, in a good way. He will adapt his offense while fighting big guys. His catalogue of great matches is huge, but I'm also finding him pretty good on a week to week basis pre and post injury (specially 2005-09). Toyota is one of the best spotty wrestlers ever. You can always expect fireworks when watching a match of hers. Maybe she was a bit excesive quite often and that stopped her matches to reach their full potential (still great matches most of them), but when she found the perfect balance she was as good as anyone. The Yamada tags with Ozaki and Kansai, the Aja matches and the Destiny Hokuto match are truly exceptional matches and she's one of the big reasons why. Both have tendencias that could hurt their matches a bit, exagerating their bigger traits, but I think Toyota's are a bit more present in her overall career. Manami is the best offensive wrestler, Shawn is the best seller. I'm a big fan of HBK's long term selling and (most of) his facial expressions and how he uses those two things to put over the epicness of the climax of his matches. I wish Toyota had some of that, but she's more impressive athletically. I have to admit I'm more of a character and theatre guy than a sport and athleticism guy when it comes to wrestling, so my personal preference will be Shawn. I think I enjoy most of his work more than Toyota's. But it's a pretty fun comparison!

I'm going with Hash here. I think he had a more consistent career and he peaked earlier and longer than Jumbo (I guess Jumbo would have been amazing throughout the 90s, but we'll never know sadly). The aura Hashimoto has in his matches is also something I don't think Jumbo can compete with, at least pre-1989 Jumbo. I still love Jumbo, 70s Jumbo is a prodigy and he's definitely good throughout the 80s, very good sometimes, but he didn't "find himself" until the Choshu and Tenryu rivalries. He worked the NWA style and he was good at it, but nothing really special like his late years. You can feel Hashimoto's uniqueness at any point in his career. In terms of offense, both are great. I believe Hash did more with less, though.

He's like the Kobashi of the style. So passionate, able to bring drama better than any other shoot wrestler, and he has a perfect balance between matwork and striking, while most of the other guys I've watched tend to focus more on one of the two.

I love the Joe trilogy and his entire WWE run, so he'll make my list, but to define exactly where I would need to dive deep into more of his pre-WWE stuff. Any recs?

Trying to reply both. I know the Aja rivalry, and the status she has before, during and after feuding with Bull. I like the rivalry and I love them together. My bad for saying I wanted Bull to be "the main attraction", she clearly was the ace of AJW and the biggest star of her period on top of the mountai, wasn't trying to say she wasnt. What I was trying to say is that, taking Aja as an example, even while still not at her peak and still not the face of the company, you can make a strong argument about Aja being, at least, as good as Bull in their most famous matches. I want Bull against obvious worse workers than her, and I don't think Aja was obviously worse than Bull in the cage match or the title matches from 1992, for example. I want to see Bull matches where the purpose can just be "look how good this match can be because it's a Bull Nakano match", not "look how cool this match can be because it's Bull Nakano, a great wrestlers, against [insert another great wrestler she faced]". I want matches where she's the main attraction from a ringwork perspective. And no, I don't need Bull to be the best at every aspect of her game. It would help to rank her higher, obviously, but there's no need for that because I already see how good she was. I think she's like Tenryu, wrestlers that the whole is better than the sum of their parts. I still like her and will rank her, just not as high as most of the other joshi candidates I'm also focusing on right now. She's very carismatic, energetic, and I can see the argument for her being a total package in the ring, but I believe some other joshi contenders took some of Bull's aspects to next level of greatness, and defined their ringwork better focusing on them and adding more personality than her.

From what I can say, Yoshida-Yagi is a better match than any Bull Nakano match I've ever seen (including Queendom). I like Bull, and I feel I should like her style more than I do because, on paper, hers is the type of wrestling I would do If I were a pro wrestler. But there's something about her that doesn't click with me as much as other joshi candidates, or great wrestlers in general. She's like a mix of qualities I appreciate, but in small dosis, and you can find what makes her great at bigger scale in other joshi legends. She's not as brutal as Aja, as dramatic as Hokuto, as menacing as Kandori, as spectacular as Toyota, as vicious as Ozaki, as creative as Satomura, etc. And I can't find a proper word for her: That's maybe because I'm watching her against (what I consider) better wrestlers, so I would love some Bull recommendations where she's the main atrraction, the clearly better wrestler of the match, against lesser known opponents.

Foley was the best wrestler in the Attitude Era by far (considering Austin best years, 1997 and 2001, happened just before and after the AE). The most intelligent "dumb" wrestler ever, and the kind of worker you could always trust to deliver something great when it was necesary. He'll be on my list, near the middle.

Just watched this. Fuck, you were god damn right. Satomura is a top 25 contender to me (just like others, idk, 40? or some others wrestlers, duh), and the more I watch of her, the more I'm convinced she's AT LEAST top 3 joshi ever. Right now I have her in my top 5 (Aja, Hokuto, Kandori and Devil are the other ones, and I think Meiko has a strong chance to, at least, surpass the last two), and she's totally one of the best workers of the 10s. Male and female. One of the absolute best offensive wrestlers ever, and her consistency is almost unmatched (from what I've watched thus far). Pretty hyped to see where I'm finally putting her after five more years watching her work.

Isn't Gorgeous George the guy that basically invented heel gimmicks and wrestling?

I think 2016 GWE nailed it with Bret. Top 20 but not top 10 sounds perfect for him, to me. I have him a bit lower, he's definitely a top 25 contender, it's just that there are more than 25 amazing wrestlers fighting for a top 25 slot.

I would say Batista had his best match ever with Trips at Vengeance 2005, the HIAC. Triple H is a guy I don't think deserves to be considered as great because reasons we all know, but I seriously think he really is pretty great at his best. Hell, I think he reached that level more times than people tend to give him credit for. Since 2002 he have: -Elimination Chamber 2002 (his performance kinda puts together the whole match). -WM XX main event, when I think he's the best performer of the match. -The Batista feud, the only time in his career he put over someone else, with the HIAC showdown as their greatest hit and a legit MOTYC. -WM XXIV Orton/Cena/HHH, very fun triple threat kinda underrated because how good that whole WM edition was (specially the MITB, Shawn/Flair and the main event. Oh and people seem to really like Show/Floyd too for whatever reason, but that's another story). -vs Cena at Night of Champions 2008. Their best match together I think, pretty cool. -Both 2008 and 2009 Elimination Chambers. -That TLC with Shawn against JeriShow, very fun stuff. -vs Sheamus at WM XXVI (he should have lost, yeah, but still pretty good match). -Both Taker matches at WM XXVII and XXVIII. I know some people don't like that kind of WWE epic storytelling, but I enjoy it for special ocassions like those two. -I remember really liking the cage match with Lesnar, but I should rewatch it, it's been a while. -Shield vs Evolution. Those two matches are amazing. -The Ambrose title match. This was the kind of match nobody expected to be that good, but damn they had so much quemistry. It was worked like a modern NWA title match, in a good way. -The Rollins match. Yeah I really like that, and I'm not really a fan of either guy. But that match worked pretty well for me. -Batista's retirement match at WM 35. That was fun as hell and Triple H showed his most vicious side sincew the RA Era. (I'm excluding the most famous or typically recommended stuff like the Bryan match or the Ronda mixed tag, but those obviously are fantastic matches too. I just wanted to focus on more underrated stuff.) As you can notice, I'm only recommending a couple of matches per year (sometimes even less), and considering how many opportunities he had throughout all those years(or gave himself), that's totally a failure of a main event career. For every great match or performance he has had, he had a lot more of dissapointing, mediocre or even garbage stuff, some of it even working with good wrestlers and bringing their worst version out of them (thinking of you, Shawn). But he still had more pretty good, some even excellent matches to his resume after his 2000-01 peak. I'm not trying to encourage people to reconsider Triple H's candidacy. I won't vote for him because, as Cap said, the bad stuff totally outweights the good stuff, and for the worst reason possible: he choose to be that way, to ruin wrestlers and matches just to keep his career alive. But I dislike that theory that he wasn't able to have good matches after 2001, so I wanted to share some of his cool stuff from the last two decades, that's all.

I totally agree with El-P here. Angle was amazing as a go-go worker, but is not like he was great until 2003 and suddendly he stopped being good for the rest of his career. Great short-term seller, cocky heel dominating, limbworker, overconfident matworker, intense brawler... I think only Kobashi is better at kicking out at 2'999999 when it's necessary. He probably was the most entertaining worker to follow in TV beetween 2000 and 2006, which is awesome, and then you have his TNA run... I don't think that's Angle's peak (at least not all those years), but he is still great at what he does. His New Japan run is a bit dissapointing though, but I think you can still build his case without those matches and considering him a serious top 10 contender.

Not even close. Okada has that privilege.

The Jericho matches are excellent, specially the apuestas one. And you should definitely watch him against Billy Kidman at 15/03/99 Nitro, a match I consider a masterpiece in highflying cruiserweight matches. Another very underrated match is vs Taker at Royal Rumble 2010.

1. Kenta Kobashi 2. Bryan Danielson 3. Jushin Thunder Liger 4. Hijo del Santo 5. Nick Bockwinkel 6. Chris Benoit 7. Stan Hansen 8. Mitsuharu Misawa 9. Aja Kong 10. Hiroshi Tanahashi Choosing just ten wrestlers for a preliminar ranking is hard as fuck, because I can give another, idk, 20-25 names who have strong chances to be in these top spots too. I think I have my top 3 pretty locked (the order could change, though), but from #4 to maybe #25 or whatever anything can change. Same with wrestlers I'm considering for that Q2 segment of my list (26-50). For example, right now I have Hokuto and Akiyama near the top 20, but I can see both of them as top 10 locks if everything I still have to watch continues to deliver. And the more I think about it, the more I see Misawa out of the top 10 (but not too far below). I have more top tier contenders than ever, and that's fun and satisfying as hell, but also puts a lot of pressure on me. How the hell does a list feel right if you have Casas or Funk "only" at #15 or #20 in it? But again, there's a lot more of amazing wrestlers. I still have five more years...

He's a better, darker, Jeff Hardy, and I say that in the best way possible. He should look like a vanilla, "look at how edgy I am" version of Jeff, but his ringwork makes you take him seriously. His consistency have been pretty admirable since 2018, and I'm sure he's not at his peak yet. These next five years will be very important for him, and AEW should put the trigger on him for the main title sooner than later. The potential for a high position in a 2036 GWE is there, iykwim.

Two of my favourites: vs Io Shirai, Sendai Girls 19/4/2018 vs Mercedes Martinez, WWE Mae Young Classic 2019

I watched the Chigusa match yesterday, and damn. It was amazing, and Hokuto was perfect in her role, with all that vicious offence and attitude towards Chiggy. I also loved her in the Bull match in 1991 when I watched it a few weeks ago. I don't need her to be at 93-95 levels before and after those peak years, just great enough to see your career as consistent as possible. And Hokuto is delivering, to me at least. She clearly was a very good wrestler before her peak, from what I've seen. I'll watch those 80s tags and more 00s stuff.

That's also my favourite Martel match ever, and the only thing keping it away from the full five, for me, is the stupid finish. Everything else is just perfect pro wrestling. Other Bockwinkel matches are excellent too, they had awesome chemistry and it should be reminded as one of the best in ring sagas ever.

As recently as late 2019, he had his last singles match with Minoru Suzuki and that match rules. Not exactly the showdown I think the rivalry was building up to, but if you see it in a vacuum you won't be bothered by that. Great fight.

I'm one of those fans, actually, and yeah I love Vader. Not my favourite big man (Hansen exists) but pretty close. He'll probably make my top 30, surely top 50. The shoot stuff was a great reinforcement of his case, he was able to adapt to the ringwork there while retaining his overall style and aura. I love the "subtle versatility" he has, specially for a monster powerhouse. PS: and I LOVE Flair and specially Terry, too

I need a deep dive in his indie run, but I've been loving his WWE run. He's one of these guys that does everything he can with whatever they gave to him, be a four minutes match with Cesaro at WM kickoff, comedy stuff in a dead Cruiserweight division, etc. He has delivered in a big way when giving the chance (Bryan, Thatcher, ZSJ...) so yeah, these next five years will be crucial for him. He could make my list easily.

I'm pretty sure Kenny Omega have a strong chance to be that guy. I feel Shawn's goofiness kinda suits him very well, both as a confident babyface and as an arrogant heel, but Kenny does that while trying to look serious and great, and I think he actually ruined big matches because of It.

Grey might be my favourite WOS guy, and have a strong chance of making my list. It's just a matter of where. I've seen some of his most famous matches (Myers, Saint) and some others with guys like Breaks and Cortez, loved all of them, but I still need to watch a lot more of WOS as a whole, so any recommendations are welcome.