Reel

I really like the Ziggler match too, not as high as some other people in this thread, but it is certainly better than the sum of its parts. Every match of his later WWE run seemed to have that spot where a guy hangs onto the ropes in the tree of woe for no reason, only to get stomped, and there are few things in the history of wrestling I dislike more.

One of those early Hulks, Kirby clearly is drawing the Hulk as having the ability to fly, and Stan is just sort of ignoring it. It's really weird.

Co-sign on ASUKA. Arez, Aramis, Villano III Jr, and Demonio Infernal are all guys in Mexico I can see contending in 2026 if things keep going the way they're going. CMLL is so weird, so who knows if anybody in that promotion will have a chance to put together matches, but Templario and Soberano Jr might have a shot. The DDT guys, Takeshita and Ueno, seem like their going to get a lot of chances to have great matches in the next 5 years, and have been pretty good so far. One of the great disappointments of the last few years has been Shinya Aoki devolving from one of the best booked wrestlers in the world into a DDT comedy wrestler, so who knows with people in that promotion. Shotaro Ashino in AJPW, and Kaito Kiyomiya in NOAH fall into that same bucket. There are U.S. Indie guys I like, like Garrini, Josh Bishop, Thomas Shire, but they're gonna need great years for me to really think about them seriously. Ilja Dragunov is a guy I really like and could see putting together a top 100 resume by the time 2026 rolls around.

Megumi Fujii Fujiii really only has a case for a 100 vote, so this nomination might purely be for me to put her there on my ballot, but here's her case. She has 3 matches, and I'm not sure I'd call any of them great, you could make the argument for the Yoshida match, but in all of them, she looks incredible. Everything is slick, everything is crisp, and she looks like an absolute killer. She would go on to be one the best fighters in women's MMA, but all of these matches take place before the bulk of her run in that sport. Considering her at all is going to be a stretch, but she has a sort of extreme version of Volk Han's case, very few matches, but each one has something special. Megumi Fujii vs Mariko Yoshida MMA Rules Arsion 6/1/2003 Mariko Yoshida & Megumi Fujii vs. Ayumi Kurihara & Kyoko Kimura - Ibuki 6/5/2005 Fujii Megumi & Natsuki Head vs Yoshida Mariko & Shibutani Shu - Ibuki 3/19/2006

He for sure has a lot of good matches, and when I said his matches weren't that good, I meant that in the sense that they weren't up to the level of his reputation. I will say that he was great in angles, I just don't think the matches ended up being especially good, in terms of being good matches and not necessary parts of angles, outside of the Dusty/Dustin tag, the Savage MSG match, and maybe some of the Jake stuff.

The thing that hurts Ted, and I think this came up last time, is that his WWF run is so lackluster, and people make excuses for that, but the fact of the matter is his matches mostly just aren't that good, and in big spots, he doesn't shine. Like, the Ultimate Warrior has a far superior top-end output than Ted, and I don't think most sensible people would say Warrior is better, but working the same shows on the same schedule, that crowbar outperformed DiBiase. If your most visible stuff is underwhelming, it takes a lot to overcome that, and I'm not sure Ted has enough great stuff to overcome that, whereas someone like Martel seems to be able to overcome the Model being an underwhelming in-ring run.

Panther in Monterey in 2000 is the one that comes to mind immediately.

One of the wrestlers I'm considering for #1 at the moment. One of the most aesthetically pleasing wrestlers of all time, all of his spots look so good, and in a style where that isn't always the case. He can brawl, he can do high spots, he can go to the mat. Plus he has the Santo aura.

This account on Archive.org has a ton of great stuff PuroArchive

I've been watching some of the matches from when he was the trainer at Santino's school, they're mostly all on youtube, and I'm not going to say they're great matches, but him slapping the shit out of random Canadian trainees is awesome.

better than the MS-1 match

I feel like if you watched current AJPW week-to-week it might be a little different, but I just helicopter in and watch the big matches every few months, and boy is every Kento match about him hitting the 7th or 8th German for the win. Matches are still good, but I feel like you could set your watch to it.

I haven't seen his run on Luch Underground, and the little bit of his Indie run before coming back to WWE wasn't anything spectacular, but outside of that, here's some stuff I've liked: with Bandido and Fenix vs Young Bucks and Ibushi - All In vs Andrade - Smackdown 1/15/19 vs Andrade - Smackdown 1/22/19 vs Andrade, Samoa Joe, and R-Truth - Fastlane 2019 vs Andrade - Raw 8/5/19 vs Cesaro - Raw 9/16/19 vs Brock Lesnar - Survivor Series 2019 vs Andrade - Raw 1/20/20 vs Murphy - Raw 4/20/20

The Hijo del Santo match, I think it was a fan cam, was not what I wanted it to be and was a bit disappointed. Everything else I've seen, a handful of 6 mans, has been good.

Has Rey done enough since 2016 to move up on the overall list? I can't say my opinion on him has changed, he's still one of the most consistent wrestlers ever. But he has another 5 years of being one of the best TV workers in the world, including maybe the best TV match in WWE history, and so good stuff on big shows, like the 6 man on All In, the Brock match, and some multi-man US Title matches in 2019.

This seems like a good place to start http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/09/complete-and-accurate-eddie-kingston.html

One of my favorite wrestlers over the last few years, but I feel like I'm a bit low on the actual in-ring stuff. He has a presence that is almost entirely missing from modern indies and to a lesser extent modern wrestling. There are few things I enjoy more than when they put him against trainees in AIW, where he gets to beat the tar out of them in front of their friends and family, the Wes Barkley and Tre Lamar matches stand out. On the other hand, I can't say there are a ton of other matches that I would point to as my favorites, outside of the 2017 stuff with Tracy Williams. The recent stuff from AEW that got hype, I thought was good, but not great. I haven't seen much of the Chikara stuff though, and that seems like the place that would have the sort of stuff you could make a case for him with.

Was she better than the opportunities she got? Almost, certainly. But, what happened, happened, and what happened was mostly a whole lot of nothing.

I think he's fine, but his leaving WWE caused a lot of people to act like he became one of the best wrestlers in the world since he left, and nothing has really changed other than he pretends to be a MMA fighter a couple of times a year, except he's an MMA fighter who uses a double arm ddt for some reason.

Seems like exactly the same wrestler, except now he exchanges elbows in the center of the ring like a rube.

Can't think of any standout indie matches, but whenever I've seen him on a CMLL undercard he'll usually base for some spot from Star Jr or Valiente and make it look great.

He takes a hell of a beating in the Valentine/Krofatt JWA tag.

I think she's the best actor in WWE history and a perfectly fine wrestler, but she got no shot. Although, that thing she can do to her arm to make it look like it broke rules.

I think Go is the wrestler who has had the best run post-GWE16. He got a lot of hype last year, and he was great, but I think compared to his 2018 and 2019, it was a relatively down year for him. He seems like he could fall apart at any moment now, but for as long as this run lasts, he's one to watch for 2026.

I watched a good chunk of Dragon Gate is 2016, didn't love the Mochizuki match discussed above, but thought the matches he had with Susumu, 2/14 and 3/6, were great, the 2/14 one especially. Also had a good match with Yamato in July of that year.