Ma Stump Puller

stalling is so effective as a heel tactic that it's even working people 40+ years later, who knew!

I've updated this thread with a couple extra matches I was able to dig up as of recent, including a Mickie Knuckles match, of all things!

some truly cursed selections here but was a fun watch

I think the Kid drop is kinda weird, his NJPW stuff is *still* quite strong and subsequent footage reviews have proven that he was quite solid in AJPW even way past his peak and beyond. It might be perhaps just people being tired of that style because of similarities to modern work or revisionism. I can't really pin any single element where there was a movement against him or anything, especially since Tiger Mask did very well by comparison.

Dump/Oz did happen in a tag match, otherwise yeah all good

This was a really interesting match all things considered, Mariko Yoshida and Mickie Knuckles both look and act from different universes so seeing them meet up for their first (and only) encounter seemed like something worth watching. I'd say right off the bat that if you're going into this expecting hardcore grindhouse Mickie Knuckles then go elsewhere because this is well before she'd gain that reputation (she was only barely 2 years wrestling at this point! ) and is more so her working a gritty underdog babyface role to the dominant returning champ in Yoshida who had won the last literation of this a couple of months ago. The match is predictively structured very much around Yoshida's tendencies, so we get a lot of scrappy sprawling and grappling for the early sections. I was shocked by how well Mickie held her own in these, granted, diminished grappling sequences, being able to push the agenda and defend reliably against any early pushes for submissions. Narrative early on frames Mickie as inexperienced but with a lot of heart, something that over time Yoshida gets increasingly more frustrated with by how she converts from straight grappling to throwing closed-fist punches to the head and stomach, though still goes back to the well of bullying her opponent with submissions. As expected Yoshida's work here is pretty solid, she throws out a variety of cool little holds here for the sake of variety, never feeling like she's losing interest and always making the holds themselves feel dynamic, well-worn with the two battling for control throughout. Mickie similarly in a different fashion excels here mostly at selling: she takes a DDT and does a cool little leg shake to showcase the trauma, or when her arm gets attacked with holds she keeps it straight and tucks it to the side like how you'd actually do if you broke or fractured something there. There's a care for attention in those little moments that you would honestly seldom see from people far, far more physically capable than her, and it's most likely why she became as endearing as she did alongside the batshit hardcore stuff. Yoshida however clearly carries the weight of the actual physical work here as the bully of the match to bring that out of her, so all in all I think there's a good balance there between the two that makes this much better than it had any right to be. At one point Mickie even starts doing Kawada kicks to the head which is worth the watch alone I'd imagine. Last third is a lot of fun with Yoshida trying desperately to shut down her opponent's momentum with long drawn out submission chains while Mickie manages to Hulk up and start no-selling, with her throwing some rough offence (though she did have a fairly good lariat....) that still works in the context of the match itself. Ultimately after a couple of signature Yoshida counter-for-counter exchanges with Mickie getting some near falls with rollups she gets caught one too many times and passes out in the Spider Twist, too tough to tap before it became cool to do so. This was a pretty sweet match for the reasons elaborated above, definitely another example of Yoshida carrying someone to perhaps a greater match than they'd be otherwise capable of doing but Mickie holds her own here and plays the role of the outmatched native well enough with the occasional flush move to boot. It's an oddity for sure, but one you'd actually come out thinking it was worth the venture for its contents rather than simply the wacky aesthetic, if that makes any sense.

Yoshinari Ogawa/Bryan Danielson Kobashi/Tenryu Vader/Nick Bockwinkel Fujiwara/Necro Butcher Yuki Ishikawa/Giant Baba all of those would slap

He'll be probably lower than #2 by then, I think this was his one real big moment with his final retirement stint fresh in people's minds to get the #1 spot and that's passed. If he does maybe come back for a match or two will perhaps decide that, but for now this is I believe going to be his peak. If they prove me wrong 10 years later feel free to meme about it with this for as long as you want lol But yeah quick aside, I joined the forums in 2021 to pass the time during COVID, had a lot of fun building up to this GWE by pushing my favourites with agenda posting and been very happy seeing people like Keita Yano or Carlos Amano inexplicably not only rank but do so pretty well all things considered with dozens of ballots cast with them featured. Job's not done until I see them on the top 100 though as with a couple of others, so I will be still at work here to make that happen. In all seriousness though thanks to everyone who voted as well as those who were involved in vetting ballots and nominations (one of which included me apparently). It's a huge effort and definitely not for the faint of heart. Hopefully we'll still be around for 2036

On a serious note I don't think anything on his part in terms of like people realising his stuff was somehow ass, there's just more varied taste with the people voting now as opposed to in prior editions where it was almost unilateral gospel that AJPW was the greatest thing on Earth, Manami Toyota was the biggest female star of the 90's and NJPW had far worse matches than them. Tastes have branched off over the last decade or so and there is no one single line of thought that the majority subscribes to. There's also maybe the possibility that people might have been burned by his post-90's work because Kawada is quite spotty after the early 2000's, idk I don't remember people being crazy for him and Muto in like 2005 botching nearly every big spot they were trying to do.

More based, for one. I thought Tanahashi was a much better heel than face overall, his invader work just hits a lot harder than a lot of his more pure babyface outings and lets him flex his Shawn-influences a lot more overtly than the occasional flashy move. He's an incredible heater and it sucks that aspect of him in NJPW very rarely came up bar the occasional flash where he'd skirt the rules in a big match or tease.

I'd bet on Kong making it actually, she has a lot more exposure with modern voters through her work in the 2020's and her case is more biased towards longevity which typically is something more considered than things like peak or, god willing, how many times they won the WWE championship.

His Naito match was solid and his Kaito series of matches the two had were pretty entertaining. Looking back on it Old Man Muto in NOAH as much as some people memed on it (and it was at some points quite the meme) was quite an endearing long term story all about battling against his limits and needing every little trick to survive against a never-ending torrent of challengers. That's honestly one of the main reasons why I had him so low on my list, his ability to consistently reinvent his offence/presentation to adapt to the zeitgeist is almost unrivalled.

they weren't burned on his dogshit ajpw matches because they only started watching after that stint thankfully ended lol

I had Shinobu Kandori #26 on my ballot and I'm pretty good with that selection. She's a breath of fresh air in a 90's scene that can get overindulgent to a fault by for the most part just focusing on super uncooperative scraps, but not going overboard to the point where the match quality is compromised. Great grappler with a keen sense to give and take when it matters, also has shockingly good longevity past the 90's with her carrying Dump to her best match post-retirement and holding her own against Meiko in 2007. Her ability to make simple moves like a choke or armbar feel like "you're fucked" insta-death moves that everyone fears and no one wants to be stuck in is pretty unmatched. My mind boggles at the idea that she was considered a lump at some point in time, probably the same brain-trust that considered Hotta bad for being "too stiff" lmao

Nominations are there for mainly two reasons; #1 It encourages forum discussion (why did you nominate x, what matches do you recommend etc etc.) #2 It's much more democratic than a free-for-all Like I had a couple of people asking "why nominations?" It's because it allows people who want to make their unique or interesting takes to make them properly and get more coverage as opposed to just turning up with a list that says Toru Yano at like #8 and not elaborating. The way we have allows people to get interested in wrestlers or styles they would otherwise not even sneeze at normally which is always a cool thing, I know from experience that my nominations led people to watching and eventually becoming fans of said nominates which wouldn't be possible otherwise. There's also the matter of logistics, we have over 700 people nominated (!!!) all with individual pages, if there was no requirement how would we handle making new pages? It would still involve people having to say "hey does x have a discussion page yet?" and having to manually add them to the pile. It's not like the process is extremely tedious as it is when all you need is a name and 3 matches to recommend. You don't even need to be on the forum to do it, in fact a good couple were added via other outlets like Discord.