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Everything posted by Tetsujin
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He'll probably be the overall #1 by 2036 GWE. I won't vote for him this time, because he's still in the middle if his career and he keeps adding to his case. The AEW setting and turning babyface again gave him the keys to reaching his peak, and he's delivering time and time again, even with some of his permanent issues still there. Yeah, he still has a lot to learn, but his consistency and his instant classics from 2023 onwards are undeniable to me. Watching him live at Wembley against Jericho (of all people) really made me *get* why he's special and how he's learning to make his stuff matter more while still doing a lot. But please, stop spamming the Styles Clash for a false finish.
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He won't make my list. Omega is the cleareast example of "believing he's better than he actually is", perhaps more than any other wrestler (and my god, think the ground that covers). He legitimately believes he's the GOAT and tries so hard to be perceived as such, in a way I almost never get to buy him in an honest way. As "one of the best ever", he feels so unnatural, so manufactured, even more than other "fake-GOATC" names like Jericho or HHH or Okada. Which is a shame, because if he never had that over-the-top ambition and Meltzer never gave him 6*, there's a great wrestler there, whenever he holds his annoying tendencies back. Some of my favourite matches of him are the ones where he is either out of his comfort zone (vs Jericho at WK, the hardcore stuff vs Moxley) or directed by a better big bombs guy than him (the Naito trilogy). But he always has to go for too much overacting and "cinema" on most of his big matches; he's a wrestler that does a lot of things, and he does them beautifully and brutally, but he's one of those guys that always, and I mean *always*, has to put every single one of his moves on every match. Most of the times, in the same order. For a guy as maximalist as he is, that often means a lot of pacing issues, and that combined with his annoying mannerisms and cringey selling, tend to irritate me. I enjoy him a lot at his best. The first two Naito matches are among my favourites ever. But most of his other super acclaimed stuff, like the Okada series, the Danielson match, all the Elite melodrama, or recently the Gabe Kidd match, I don't like it as much. He's more worried about performing greatly than serving to the match's purpose, and the Kidd match is one of the best examples: the crowd wanted to boo him and he initially leaned into it, but since it was his return match and he was going over in the end, he wanted to do the diverticulitis selling and *be the highlight*, therefore the match feels uncohesive and a bit lackluster as a result, totally disconnected from the crowd and the story. Also, for a guy who loves to lean into cinematic matches and moments, his acting kinda sucks. Like, hilariously. I never understood why more people don't have an issue with that part of his game. He's a good wrestler most of the time, great even, but he feels like the sum of the parts of other wrestlers who are better than him at his stuff. His acting is way worse than Shawn Michaels', he doesn't give his explosive offense as much meaning behind it as Kurt Angle does, he lacks genuine character traits and works more like a caricature of what a great wrestler is. He's pretentious, that's the one word to describe him.
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I really want to give him a try, DDT is such a blind spot for me. I've previously only seen a Takeshita match in 2017 which was brutal, and I know I've seen him working with Tanahashi but I don't remember how that went. I'll try some of the stuff you guys mentioned, but is there any particular really great match every HARASHIMA fan has to watch if you want to *get* him?
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His AEW run is the first time I'm seeing him putting everything together. He finally seems to get how to balance his style with great and consistent character work. All he needed to be was spotmonkey Andrew Tate, and it rules. You hate to see him jumping and flying and flipping, he believes he's so godly, and he alwas gets his comeuppance. That said, I really enjoyed his Prince Puma run (yeah, the All Night Long is fucking amazing) and some of his pre-WWE stuff, including the infamous Ospreay BOSJ bout. In NXT, he was great in the midcard against Adam Cole, but I don't remember anything else memorable. But now in AEW, he's becoming so integral to the product that I'm honestly fascinated. Not a chance at my list, for now at least. Too inconsitent, his style too polarizing for me. But he's definitely peaking now, and it's great to see it.
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I was heavily impressed by her performance in the Sareee title match earlier this year, still one of the three best matches of the year thus far. Will definitely start watching more of her stuff, because she has that kind of charisma that's hard to deny, and lots of viciousness behind everything.
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Except for the awful Attitude Era-esque MJF segment, top to bottom that was one of the very best Dynamites ever made.
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Owens' career could be done at this point, sadly. Hopefully not. But if that's the case, what an interesting career to look at. I believe both he and Zayn hurt their cases by staying in WWE for that long, where from 2017 to 2022 they gave them absolutely nothing interesting to work with. It's like they were awesome young pro wrestlers, then wasted most of their peak, and from a couple of years ago onwards both came back to the discussion out of nowhere as great veterans.
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I would fuse The Hurt Syndicate with Shane Taylor Promotions to create The Hurt Promotions or something like that, à la Corporate Ministry but with better wrestlers and a great manager to lead them all. You could even use the stable to push Taylor as a new upcard big guy with Lashley passing him the torch or something like that. Loving the Dynasty build up thus far. Adam Cole is not the guy I want Daniel García wasting most of his title reign with, but Danny has been carrying himself as a true star throughout their entire rivalry and it's been a pleasure to see it. Hopefully he retains at the PPV and Kyle Fletcher challenges him. I would be invested in Swerve regaining the title, but they already showed us they're waiting for Darby so, it is what it is. At least get the Tríos titles off of the Death Riders and let FTR and Edge have some fun in the midcard for a while. For a company that likes to put everyone into a stable, it's very funny how they don't use the Tríos Championships as something to fight for for said stables.
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Sorry, and no offense, but people complaining about women bleeding in wrestling brawls is so weird an uncomfortable. It's 2025.
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I believe his current IWGP Champ run will make a lot of us re-evaluate his case. Such an underrated midcard guy, but it's also true that when New Japan's ringwork peaked on the last decade, he wasn't able to being on the same level as Tanahashi, Okada, Naito, Shibata, Ishii, Suzuki, Styles, KUSHIDA, Nakamura or Hiromu. Just to name the first ones that come to mind, but you'll find specific stretches where many other guys like Honma, Omega, Ibushi, White, Shingo, Juice Robinson, ZSJ, Taichi... All of them surpassed Goto at some point(s), and I'm not counting for half of all those guys for my list. If his pre-2013 work holds up, and his current run overdelivers, things might change, but I believe his ceiling is just "someone you might consider just in case you're having trouble finding the lower spots".
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I didn't have the Briscoes on my top 100 for a long time, but the FTR trilogy really made me watch them with different eyes and reconsider them entirely. Both were some of the best guys at the style of wrestling they worked, and now with Jay's passing, Mark is having this acclaimed singles run that his brother also had and that was somehow needed to me in order to finally lock him in my top 100. The way he still moves for his age and the career he has had is incredible, but even better is his pyschology and how he manages to make you FEEL the match he's having thanks to his selling, his rather-die-than-bend attitude and his underrated facial expressions. This past week's Kyle Fletcher match on a random Collision is a perfect example of all of the above. An ambitious, yet humble, veteran pro wrestler that always gives his best in AEW and ROH now, someone you can enjoy in basically any role on a card. He still lacks the amount of top tier output compared to other top 100 guys, so he'll be on the lower side of the list alongside his brother, but I'm so happy I found the light with him because he's such a treat.
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Yeah she's the best female wrestler of all time and a top 10 lock for me. Right now I have her at #7 but I can see her challenging for the bronze medal. Absolute fantastic wrestler at every point of her career that I've seen, and at her peak one of the very, very, very best ever.
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While I'm not a fan of her pre-AEW work, her Timeless run has been absolutely iconic not only character-wise, but the title defenses she had against a different set of opponents is sort of amazing. She can bleed and brawl with a green Mariah May, grapple with Deona Purrazzo in a match that would't be out of place in the 70s, or trade bombs with Thunder Rosa and Serena Deeb. None of those matches reach MOTYC level, sure, but they're all still pretty good or even great. She's still super young, so if she keeps going at this level for another ten years or so... Maybe.
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Yeah, obviously absurdly soon for him, but I'll say his G1 33 run was awesome, easily the best guy on his block due to how refreshing his act was compared to the stale epicness of current New Japan matches. He has the potential to be a huge star and I like his ringwork, but yeah... I hope we can consider him for 2036.
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That's funny, because I love the guy and will probably vote for him, but since his great 2016, WWE kept him in limbo for like... Six years? It wasn't until his Bloodline stuff in late 2022-early 2023 that I felt he was finally adding something to his case again (except for the Knoxville match). And he's been on a great run since then, that's true, but I wouldn't say he was one of the most improved since last GWE overall.
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Gotta admit, I was so saddened by Juice's injury but Komander has proven to be a great replacement. Really cool matches with Ricochet and Darby, and I can't wait to see him being demolished by Claudio and Brody. Fletcher is becoming surprisingly good in this heel run. The choice of giving him such an advantage on his block makes me believe he might not go into the semifinals, even though I know the Ospreay rematch is right there. I desperately want García to win the whole thing and I believe they might be booking the Blue league with that in mind; Dani/Fletcher should be the ultimate Blue league match (because obviously Okada is gonna go through).
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That's the thing. He was awesome there, and he specially took advantage of the G1 format, although he was a babyface underdog there and that is his better role by far, something I don't think we're going to see in the C2.
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People are not ready for how insanely good of a run Juice Robinson is gonna have on the C2.
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Mariah shouldn't have won at Wembley. I get they wanted to create a new star, but Toni was still hot as champ, the story imo demanded the babyface to win, and Mariah is still too young and not at her in ring peak to carry herself as the new champ.
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I guess It depends on how they book him/it. If heel Mox is the one taking the title from Bryan and therefore retiring him full-time instead of a younger soon-to-be champ like Darby, that puts a lot of heat on him. Which is exactly who he needs to become for a Darby victory to feel even more cathartic later on. I can see the potential of all of this, it's like when It was Lesnar the one who broke the Streak. I'm not sure about any of this, though. Not because of Mox, he can carry any story and gimmick, but because he's always hinting at something bigger happening that we don't know and that's gonna changer AEW. I'm very afraid it's gonna be Shane McMahon related, and that would be when this angle dies for me.
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That was one hell of a PPV. Everything delivered except the Moné/Shida match (and that was a decent until the dumb finish, it's not like It was bad like the Baker match), and I specially enjoyed the Street Fight and the opener. The main event was great, but in my opinion they didn't top neither the previous levels of overall violence an quality of their series, nor the other bloody and vicious matches/moments from earlier in the show. MJF/García and Willow/Stat should have happened at Wembley, so the Steel Cage could feel more special. It still was, but not as much as it should have. Almost no bullshit shenanigans in every match like it's been happening since Dynasty, I really hope they stick to that.
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Tbh choosing to do WOS sequences as your first thing to do after 13 years without wrestling and in front of +50K people in your home country is as bald as any choice could be.
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Shawn, by far. Except a couple of exceptions here and there, Omega only knows how to work one way, and that way is not always what the match/opponent/context needed the most. Shawn has show far more versatility throughout his whole career: great as a young babyface in a tag team, both being the FIP and the hot tag man, great as a midcard heel, absolutely great in gimmick matches, great main event babyface in the 90s, can work comedy and being the most serious and dramatic guy when needed, can work fun sprints on TV and long epics on PPV, can put lesser talent over. He can do almost anything and everything I can think for a pro wrestler (and one thing I can think he's not great at, his matwork, is not something where Kenny shines either), while I can only imagine one good thing Omega is good at, and not always (Kenny has done plenty of comedy, I know, but he's always seemed very cringe to me). Both are some of the very few guys with a five star match on my books, but Streak vs Career is slightly better than the first Naito/Omega. Shawn has much more high ranked matches for me, too: the other two big Taker matches, the two Cena matches, the Unsanctioned Jericho match, Rockers vs Rose/Sommers, the Ironman with Bret, the Foley match, the Flair match, the Ladder with Hall, the IYH Diesel match, the RAW Benoit match, the Angle match, Rockers vs Arn/Tully... From Kenny, I can count the G1 finals with Naito, the Dome matches with Okada and Tanahashi, the Unsanctioned Mox match, the first Ospreay match, one or two Ishii matches, and the first Jericho match. Shawn has some bad habits, but I've never felt his bad habits ruined any of his matches. I've felt that way with Omega more than twice. Both overact, but Shawn has always feel much more real to me, it's like he overreacts because he's an extrovert guy, while Omega overreacts because he thinks he's putting on an Emmy performance that in his heads elevates the match and nothing else. HBK is a natural, Omega just... doesn't have the sauce. Omega is a far better athlete, and his striking is superior, obviously, but only taking the execution and stiffness into account. When It comes to making every part of your offense matter and putting it over, Shawn's moveset is far richer than Omega's, who at the end of the day only has the Terminator dive, the V Triggers and the OWA as efective tools, and all the other stuff he does is just filler and/or it's not over. Shawn's career is full of highlights, as soon as 1986 and as late as his retirement match (and the Saudi Arabia match is there, yes, but hey, at least I laughed a lot), with a lot in between. Aside from the Ibushi DDT match, I've never found anything Omega did pre-2016 being worth watching. He never looked like one of the best guys of his generation, and only got the chance of being portrayed as such once AJ Styles left New Japan. Props to him for taking the ball and running with it, but it's stil a run that pales in comparison to Shawn's whole career being always a very solid wrestler at least and one of the best ever at most.
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I think it's pretty safe to say that Okada, Omega, Ospreay, Ishii and maybe Shibata, Suzuki and Naito are going to make it, yeah. Tanahashi should end much higher too, although that isn't a complaint by any means (neither was the previous statement thought, currently I'm voting for 4 of those 7 guys I named). Funnily enough, Nakamura will not rank this time, for obvious reasons. Bryan will take the #1 this time, and maybe Cena gets close enough if his retirement tour delivers. I'm looking forward for more Hijo del Santo footage to be discovered. If this recent trend continues, and the stuff that appears is as good as it's bee until now, he might end even higher than last time (I would LOVE a top 10 placement).