Ma Stump Puller

Had a couple of legitmately awesome years in the mid-2000's but around about like 2009 the wheels came off and never got back on again. Also the fact I don't think he had more than 5 something good singles matches that weren't gimmicked does hurt his case in the long run.

Good wrestler, will not be in the top 100 though. Shame since the guy even at the dregs of his career was still a very competent powerhouse-style worker.

Early JWP/Judo work was cool, but her stint in the West after is for the most part honestly just awful for the most part, idk if she just checked out after a couple of years or if it was the quality of opponents but she like downgraded significantly quality wise. Sad because you have a good couple of years where she seemed really promising with the Judoka gimmick

Sucks there's so little of his early work readily available since he seemed such a strong babyface with the late-material we have available, but there's GAORA for you. Won't be on the list but a good mention

If you PM @Grimmas I'm sure they would be able to accommodate your list and add them to the others submitted. We don't have a official system set up yet, so don't worry!

If you want the most authentic experience (I.E. no clipped shit, no dubbed entrances) look up the RE-C-DUB Project on Internet Archive, they have multiple years worth of material purely caught off local TV tapings. Very helpful

Idk I think the idea of Cena doing 200+ matches would've been super painful, even if they relegated a lot of them to tags or whatever. The guy did not look physically up to it the whole year and the couple of at least enjoyable matches came down to him being with guys who could work with his significant limitations.

Very polarising. One side you have his compelling character work and ability to grab crowds irregardless of the situation, the other he can be a lazy bastard who relies too much on shtick and cheapens out on having reliable matches, either leaning into complete apathy with his spotty selling or going way overboard into risky spots that probably contributed aplenty to his injury troubles. He might get on a top 100, I haven't decided yet since the NJPW-ism style is so bleh to me. If you can though go find his CMLL appearances, him as a heel henchmen for Liger is a lot of fun

I mean as a top 100 wrestler in terms of quality he'd be the last person on, but for "top 100 guys who I watch just for fun" he's definitely on there. So many incredible car-clash moments, loved his recent Best in the World run when he wasn't trying to pretend he was a wrestler.

There's going to be a lot of regency bias towards more recent individuals, I can see a lot of the 2016 GWE list not even showing up since a lot of that userbase don't even bother with the Projects anymore (their loss!). Predicting a lot of 80s wrestlers to be either much higher up here or not even there. Naito/Ospreay/Okada will all be there, though I can also see individuals like Gunther or Sami Zayn getting similar upgrades depending on a few factors. I'd hope so, Akiyama even this year has really shone as a very meat and potatoes-style wrestler, no frills but the things he does are very good.

I've now updated this C&A with a bunch of extra matches, enjoy

It's crazy that a unironic criticism of a wrestler (ESPECIALLY of this era and time) is "they're too stiff" like this was around when you had Hokuto legitmately punching people out in matches and doing career-threatening things to a far greater extent than a rough kick or powerbomb. It boggles the mind. I've watched a good bit of Hotta's matches (from her good years ofc, she sharply dwindles in watchability after the early 2000s.) and she's very much someone that I can totally get people not liking. She has a very crowbar-y style that some can work around and enhance and some clearly cannot, and she really doesn't give a flying fuck either way. She's gonna hit you hard, she's going to try to sit on you in the mat-work, it's just a part of life. Her style is very distinctive in that she obviously borrows a lot from shoot-style in her methodical grappling and focus on more "real" sequences, more grit as opposed to cooperative back and forths. She seems to think she was the hair apparent to Maeda when she's probably in actuality was closer to Anjo. Funnily enough her best matches are working that shithead Anjo-style bout where she's just being a huge bully to her opponent and stiffing them to death, it working either as a hometown defender against LLPW's talent or beating up the natives. She's better than I think some are giving credit to her selling-wise; I've seen instances where she doesn't clearly care about it, but with the right people she tends to ease up and start making more of an effort, ultimately it feels more realistic than the melodramatics of the 90s and fits her style much better. Kicks are great and I love the assortment of just randomly brutal bombs she seems to pull out of her hat, even if sometimes the pacing of them seems to drift as her later matches in the 90s have her doing seemingly endless amounts of moves to a near equal amount of near falls. I can definitely see someone having them on the top 100, for sure. It just depends on their tastes because she does some things great but can look pretty flavourless in other aspects, especially after the 90s where her mobility goes to pot and she has to rely more on the slop-brawling that dominated the industry for the 2000's.

dang everyone wants a piece of gary it seems

I would agree that her general 90's to early 2000s run is good but it kinda hits a brick wall once she gets giga-injured and starts only having super short sprints or slop-brawl main events where they just fill the whole thing with weapon spots. that Her early 90s super-jock run in JWP is outstanding though, if she'd kept that up the rest of the decade I feel like she would've been an almost undisputed top 3.

Eternally frustrating as a general feeling when watching him. He had nearly everything you could need; look, ability, athleticism....but there's just nothing underneath that. A Finn Balor match does nothing for me because the guy is horrendous at anything that isn't doing a move or bumping, and his ability to just null any interest with the same generic moveset he's had since the 2010's is unparalleled. Generic babyface, generic heel (even worse as one because he just does less of everything instead of actually putting a spin on how he works) no real attempt to be interesting as either. He just feels so hollow. Talented physically for sure, but never got it quite in a way that guys like Styles or Omega did.