Control21

I'm loving how you are running WWF so far. Everything feels fresh and exciting. Ric Flair vs Dynamite Kid sounds like a dream match. That probably would have been great in real life if both wrestlers were healthy.

Very well said, @GOTNW. Inoki moved up a few places on my ballot over the past few months. He's right outside of the top 10 now. He had a very remarkable in-ring career for the reasons you just laid out. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Wrestler Eligibility: Wrestlers must wrestle a minimum of 10 matches in a year in either the United States or Canada according to wrestlingdata.com. or cagematch.com. Wrestlers who do not meet that requirement in the year we are currently in or any future year will be considered retired. Rookies will be eligible in the year they debut. It depends on how people want to interpret this. Rey did wrestle in a US show in 1992 according to Cagematch, so technically, he meets the criteria set by the last sentence. But he didn't wrestle 10 shows in the US until 1993/1994, as he was largely doing AAA shows in Mexico in 1992, and they didn't start expanding to the US until 1993/1994.

I think as long as they have a thread and are listed in the nominees list, they should count

I think Sid and Paul E. have started the year strong for WCW. Looking forward to Superbrawl. Sid vs Sting should be a blockbuster match

Looks good to me at first glance. The only thing I would add is that 1994 would probably be more appropriate for Matt Hardy, since that was when he was actually wrestling for other promotions besides his own backyard thing he was doing with his brother.

Nice to have SMW in our game world. I think you will get a very consistent and quality product going with Steve Austin being one of your major players, along with the usual characters we would come to expect for this territory. Can't wait to read more.

I know people scoff at the idea that NJPW is an AEW development territory, basically, but when NJPW makes decisions like this, it's hard to ignore it. Putting the rocket on Newman's back and then immediately having him do a big program for AEW at Wembley is just too blatant. Another possibility is that they are doing all this as a favor for Ospreay, which is just even more stupid.

NJPW hasn't learned its lesson, I guess. What a shitshow.

My revised current top 10: 1. Bret Hart 2. Volk Han 3. Blue Panther 4. Akira Maeda 5. Kiyoshi Tamura 6. Billy Robinson 7. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 8. Mitsuharu Misawa 9. Kenta Kobashi 10. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka

I had intended to do a "Complete and Accurate" series for Volk Han, but real life got in the way, unfortunately. So I'll try to summarize my case for Volk Han here. He'll be my #2 vote in all likelihood, but he has a small chance to take the #1 spot when I submit my ballot. There are very few wrestlers who have the same awareness and "command" of the space in the ring that Volk Han did, especially right out of the gate. Anytime I watch a Volk Han match, I immediately notice two things. The first is how he never loses track of the flow of the match, and never gets "lost." He knows how to keep the crowd engaged and interested in the context of shoot style, and always seems to weave the match in ways that you don't expect immediately. Even if his career was limited to the RINGS style, this is a huge accomplishment for anyone in pro wrestling. It's a very rare gift. The second is how Han seems to manipulate space and create moments where you just have to wonder what you just witnessed. I can think of several moments here, including his debut with Maeda, where he pulls a flying armbar almost out of nowhere. Another example I can think of is his match against Andrei Ruminezei, where he does this incredibly sick combo that seems to defy the movement of time. There's also his matches with the likes of Tamura, Kohsaka, Nagai, and Yamamoto, where he does similar stuff. I know this sounds a bit hyperbolic, but I think there is something to how he can center the ring around him. He does not let the ring center him. The fact that he could maintain such a high consistency of quality matches throughout his career is remarkable. People will note that he only wrestled one match a month for most of his career, and only worked like ~65-70 matches or so. I don't think this critique makes much sense, and it seems to be centered in the American perspective where the real mettle that is valued comes from being able to work a similar number of matches in a month, or even a week, due to the old territory structure or the demands of television wrestling. This is very short-sighted, because regardless of the number of matches you work in a given timeframe, being able to put on a good match for almost every match of your career is a very high demand, especially in the context of the physical toll of shoot-style. Even when Han lost his explosiveness after 1997 or so, he was still able to work very good Pancrase-esque matches with the likes of Kanehara and Grom Zaza. He wasn't good just because of his athleticism and his ability to do certain spots; he was good because he could work a match that wasn't centered around those things. In a way, he's similar to a baseball player who had a short career but an extremely high WAR or batting average. Think Sandy Koufax or Shoeless Joe Jackson. Looking at my Cagematch ratings for Han (not entirely complete, but still a good pool of ratings), he only had two matches ranked below a 6.0 (both against Hans Nijman). Of course, that is a subjective measure (most of this is admittedly, but I like to believe insane talent is hard to deny), but Han is also ranked in the top 15 of Cagematch's rankings at the moment if you factor in rating regardless of the total amount of the votes. The "it factor" with wrestlers gets talked about a lot, and Han had it from the very beginning. When he made his debut against Maeda, the crowd seemingly knew he would be a huge star right out of the gate. "Aura" gets overused a lot these days, but he had it. The way RINGS promoted him, as a somewhat mysterious Soviet Commando badass, was genius. SAMBO was almost unheard of in a pro wrestling context at the time, and I think Han immediately changed how shoot-style would evolve from the moment he debuted. People were not doing the things he did. If the GWE is a vote based purely on in-ring work, I think Han deserves serious consideration for a spot on any ballot, especially in the top 20-30 range. Again, subjectivity comes into play here, because people have to adjust to shoot-style and the RINGS style in particular, but I can't imagine not seeing Han's magisterial work in the ring once you adjust to it. (This post might be edited as I add more thoughts, but this is my opening argument for now)

FWIW, I 100% agree with you

News & Notes (3/30-4/3/1991) Lou Thesz has reportedly returned to Japan following his scouting trip during the NCAA Wrestling Championships, which were held from 3/14 to 3/16. Thesz also made visits to several US wrestling events afterward, which were being held to help determine qualifiers for the 1991 World Championships to be held later this year. Thesz met with UWF officials to discuss his findings. Reportedly, Thesz was very excited about some of the leads he gathered. Sources close to UWF are keeping very mum about details, apparently out of fear that US promotions could hamper their recruitment efforts. (Wrestling Observer, 4/2/1991) Some sources have speculated that UWF could be targeting several names from an increasingly dynamic generation of American amateur wrestlers. Lou Thesz is still a widely respected name in amateur circles, and with the success of Duane and Dennis Koslowski in the UWF, UWF officials apparently hoped they could find receptive ears. However, one source seemed skeptical that the UWF would see much success in recruiting anyone with the Olympics coming up. Despite the success of the Koslowskis, which hasn't gone unnoticed in American wrestling circles, most young American amateur wrestlers want to chase their dreams in the Olympics, and a transition to pro wrestling straight out of college is very rare. (Wrestling Observer, 4/2/1991) With the help of Akira Maeda's connections in the Soviet Republic of Georgia, UWF has reportedly signed Zaza Tkeshelashvili. Zaza apparently impressed during a trial held for potential prospects. Zaza has a background in both amateur wrestling and SAMBO, and some have compared him to a more raw version of Volk Han. (Tokyo Sports, 4/1/1991) Oleg Taktarov, despite controversy during his match in the Netherlands in February, will be making an appearance this month for the next UWF event in Hiroshima. Taktarov reportedly apologized to UWF officials, and members of the UWF Soviet camp pushed for the avoidance of any sanctions. Despite the controversy, Taktarov is seen as a great talent for the future. (Baseball Magazine, 4/2/1991) Akira Maeda has accepted a challenge from Maurice Smith for a match this month in Hiroshima. Maurice Smith scored a big win over Peter Smit in a kickboxing event held in Tokyo, and fans have been clamoring for a match between the two striking specialists since. It will reportedly be a title match. (Weekly Pro Wrestling, 4/3/1991)

Dan Severn Oh wait....

Of course, you are not required to do anything at all. Still, common sense and fair manners suggest to me that if someone is really passionate about shoot-style, and is running a shoot-style group, one should (at least on paper) be happy to accommodate them with two wrestlers (again, two wrestlers who were doing shoot-style shit during this period) from an already deep roster in the spirit of fair play and cooperation. Edit - On the topic of Ruas, Hug, Karelin, etc....if these guys were wrestling the territories weekly in the late 80s and 90s, I would understand the point, but they weren't. They were doing shootfighting or amateur wrestling. I don't have many options to expand my roster. I can't draft, etc., so where else would I turn? Joe Bob Thornton from Wyoming Central Pro?