Ma Stump Puller

The tags between these two are great, so how about a singles? This is mostly intact out of the (spoilers! ) 30 minute draw, I'd say about 27 minutes in total. They work this as a really fascinating variation of the David/Goliath theme, with McClarity having the speed while Big Don has his imposing size yet still has to keep relenting to dirty heel antics while his opponent can overpower him cleanly when he gets the chance, making for a interesting twist on the typical concept. I really liked how they focused a bunch on pummelling; a novel concept to us today (even from the so-called "technical" wrestlers) but back then with such deep Catch influences it's almost a given that it pops up here as a sense of structure given the size difference. Don finds consistent points to trap Roy's arm behind his back during said pummelling which lets him drill the guy with some really good-looking knees and scrappy closed-fist punches. This leads to some cool arm work as well by having Don lean his whole weight onto his weakened limb to further damage it, shoving Roy into the corners or ropes to force the issue. I also was kinda into Roy's opposing work here, having to at times just focus on rough and tumble work with a couple of body punches or focusing on the head with a big sequence of consecutive headlocks. Now typically this is usually entering the boring filler section of the match wherein they slow the tempo down enough to make up for the time they need to occupy but they actually did really well making the headlock struggle on both ends actually worth watching especially since Don at a good few points gets quite close to escaping/countering with some fast technical work of his own. Ron makes himself seem like the behaggled underdog here in how he just has to keep on his feet consistently just to keep pace with his much bigger opponent which is wild because usually it's the opposite way around with these sort of things. There's a awesome heel comeuppance when Don tries to lunge at a prone Roy with him only just able to roll out of the way before dodging another charge into the corner to throw a bunch of scrappy shots to the back before getting thrown up and over with a backdrop, Don just missing a full on double stomp to the head right after using the ropes as leverage to showcase his frustration at Roy's ability to keep in the fight. This bit was in particular very well timed since the two come within I'd say about inches of tagging the other. They reset, going into more focus around the headlock; namely Roy being able to apply it multiple times despite Don's imposing strength, forcing him to cheat with hair pulling or smacking the back of his head to get even minor relief. Don puts over his opponent huge with a couple of incredible prat-bumps, kipping up for a couple of dropkicks and just this insane full-body flop escape over the top rope when Roy sticks on a Cobra Clutch that looked straight out of a French Catch match by how spectacular it looked. They cooled off with some more focus around holds right after but still had Don doing a bunch of great running leaps into corners and turnbuckles to sell his agitation, boiling to the point that he was willingly charging blindly into danger just to get his hands on his opponent faster. The "big" spot of the match was him landing a Thesz Press and them working a long FIP with Roy stuck in the subsequent hold afterwards which for me came across as the weaker material in my book (if only because it's so unconvincing for SO long to boot) but like with everything else here the two are just so good at getting great mileage out of their situation so you get Roy selling the struggle well alongside Don being a shitbag and getting his comeuppance when he gets violently thrown to the mat when trying to reapply the hold. They do a good job making the eventual time limit stipulation work by having more frantic exchanges as the impending time limit draws closer, with each man kinda just jumping over the other to try to get a quick pinfall attempt while Don hogs the ropes for dear life to survive. There's a great build to the giant heel heat spot by having Don cheap shot out of the ropes and doing his signature middle rope knee drop to the leg which gets admonishment from the ref but also a huge advantage, letting him bully his opponent with some nasty looking whips to the corner to attack the back more for his submission finish. He's protected by having his modified Bow & Arrow finish be clearly in the ropes yet he's so clearly impatient that he just applies it anyway which you could argue tends up costing him the victory since he never gets a chance to reapply the hold afterwards. Shit got super violent in the last minute as Don tries bending the back with a illegal bulldog choke while Roy's throwing fists to the back of Don's head alongside slamming said large head into the turnbuckle before the ref breaks them up and announces the 30 minute draw. This was a super strong outing that showcased Don as the stronger but far less intelligent of the duo, multiple occasions where he could've maybe got a win yet was content to go the easy way with his consistent need to take shortcuts; pretty great performance out of the guy that just makes me wish we had more prime Don Leo in circulation since he seemed like such a unique worker, especially since he's a gigantic dude yet was doing these ridiculous Shawn Michaels-like bumps decades before they would even remotely be in vogue. Roy similarly looked really good here; a prototype of the scrappy punch-happy babyface for decades to come in how he gets over his selling early while not losing too much face, especially in his explosive comebacks where he's throwing really awesome punches. He makes a headlock seem like THE big weapon here against the giant which is a testament to his talent more than anything else. A great example of how to make a draw engaging on multiple levels beyond just filling for time and standing around.

Extremely sharp in the ring and insanely slick at her best (like one of the greatest when it comes to doing just crazy back and forth sequences) but from prior watching of her she seems to have a terrible habit of completely slacking off in B-shows and just doing maybe one impressive spot and completely doss work for everything else. Fell into the trap of awful 2000's style weapon slop-brawling as well so her matches sometimes veered into her just doing heatless outside work/throwing chairs around as opposed to actually working some sort of narrative or structure. I've had matches where she does that spinning kick of hers like 15 times, it's a cool move sure but Christ tone it down a little lol. You can find a decent chunk of her Mexico indie work as of current on Youtube, though having watched some they seem to be pretty nothing affairs. I might stick her on the top 100 though since her best work seems to be plentiful and fun to go through.

don't want to be in the timeline where zack sabre jr gets on before takayama but that's probably how the cards will go

Blame Quackenbush, it got popular in Chikara.

Yeah this was a stinky one folks. "Melissa" is far better known as Cheerleader Melissa and will go on to be one of the real pioneers of women's wrestling in the 2000s and beyond but however she just wasn't ready here to have anything substantial with 1 year working at this point. She'd been given a mini-push by beating a bunch of lower-card acts so she was at least formidable in terms of her rep and we get a couple of spots here where Yoshida is trying her damn well best to give her the room to work, so that's something at least. Melissa has early control with a bunch of week 1 wrestling offence (arm drag, headlock, scoop slam) however quickly concedes it as soon as Yoshida gets on the ground and is allowed to work in her holds to equalise the situation; we get a couple of fun moments where she's just bullying the shit out of her opponent with hair pulling and nasty catch-focused face and arm cranks, the typical Yoshida brilliance as you'd expect out of her even at this point. Melissa has like one hold (front guillotine) and makes sure to spam it when necessary alongside the occasional messy counter. I think the main problem in this was that Melissa just didn't have any convincingly solid offence. Everything felt green or wimpy in regards to it actually looking substantial here from the unimpactful forearms to the weird running front elbow to the face, never here did I buy that she was actually doing any sort of damage. Everything just looked like a sloppy transition. The mat work is probably worse because Melissa can't really do anything in that front so just ends up having to slowly scurry to the ropes most of the time instead of any real interaction between the pair. At the VERY least she pulls out a Lotus Lock into a crucifix pinning position which was the only actually cool spot she did the whole match, but it was like after a vast majority of nothing so this didn't hit nearly as well as it should have done. Melissa gets a couple of obligatory near falls by doing pretty nothing moves until Yoshida punches her in the head a couple of times and throws a big boot/Air Raid combo for a very close near fall of her own. Finish they just went right into by having Melissa answer with a chokeslam that gets no sold and then Yoshida spams submissions for what seems like forever until a deep Spider Twist forces the tap. This just felt really janky, no real chemistry between the two and a lack of experience on one side meant that this always had an annoying stop/start pace to it that never really let up. Yoshida is giving it socks for a fairly nothing undercard and has to be commended for accommodating for her opponent in mind by them pacing a lot of this around her taking big bumps for a rookie and having more focus on slow grindy heat spots to get that aspect over with the crowd. That said.....still isn't good in the end, alas. Should've had this a couple years later.

I imagine if Joe got in a time machine to the 70s and gained a little extra height he would be a pretty beloved upper card workhorse of the era. The guy does the kind of methodical NWA-style sprawling matwork style very well and adapted strongly to the climates he was thrown in, learning how to incorporate more grit and submission work when shoot-style comes knocking and gives him a bunch of opportunities to be a strong hand with a bunch of the greats. I even enjoyed his brief 2010 comeback, for as little as it lasted. Not much of a complex wrestler when it came to psychology or showmanship but if you wanted a guy to straight-face grapple with you for a good 20 to 30 minutes, he was your guy. Not for my top 100 sadly though, sadly.

Great epic peak, feel like she gets a little bit too much flack for her work post-prime though. Her mobility takes a big hit but she makes up for that by hitting just as hard and being very game to push herself with the right people (Aja, Meiko). She also has a fairly fun tag stint with the headbutting GOAT Carlos Amano where they take on a bunch of wildly different duos and I'd say Dynamite despite definitely being the weakest of the links most of the time still shows that there was some quality to be had in her just steamrolling people with huge kicks and massive bombs. Even wrestling with ACTIVE LUNG CANCER she's still got it. Easy top 50 for me.

Tanaka is a weird case for myself. He has some brilliant atheticism and the guy has been a consistent perennial force when it comes to guys who do not age. I've seen him in his late 40's do 450 splashes and bounce around the ring like he totally hasn't had 20+ years of wear and tear on him, tending to have the better performances on a card than many far younger. He also has one of Kendo Kashin's best ever matches (if that means anything) On the other hand the guy has some of the WORST wrestling instincts I've ever seen from someone in GWE consideration; he will repeatedly sell big for a attacked arm or leg before immediately dropping it to do moves with the same limb, doing kicks with a leg that he wasn't able to put any weight on a minute prior. Yoshinari Ogawa gives this man a million lead-ins for him to sell the head or work something explosive but he doesn't do anything and just settles for the usual leg holds/no contact kicks. He really struggles in complex, elaborate settings that require him to do more than just his regular flashy routine which is bizarre for a guy who started in PWFG and had a multi-year stint in Battlarts. He also has some of the weakest performances in company history there as well which is a HUGE - for me since that company was stacked in the 90s. I really struggle to rank him on any top 100 because you only really ever get a certain amount of depth with him.

They spend 99% of the time as midcard heels so I'd say they were midcard, no? I haven't seen anything suggesting they are a net negative to the product either. I bring up Makai Club/Voodoo Murders because they A. Existed during periods of growth (which runs contrary to the narrative presented here) B. Were arguably even worse at their peak (Makai Club were in every main event for a good long while and TARU was immobile even in the peak of VM's push and couldn't work a good singles match) Is it "weird"? idk. I just feel like it's a erroneous point in general to associate a specific faction as being behind a national downturn in business

Says a lot that we're this far into the next millennium and we're still finding great performances out of her like that '83 Jaguar match found out of nowhere recently. Really stellar peak, found her 90's work to be pretty mixed depending on who you ask; some say it's a continuation of that brilliance, others find it dull and much more plodding by comparison. I shan't be that harsh, but I do think that Devil around the 1990's becomes much more effective in tags where her domineering powerhouse work becomes more effective and pronounced by comparison to her more technical side found in the last decade. Now for me I found her hurling people around like sacks of shit really fun, however I can see how that can glare on people compared to the more crazy workrate that they would expect. Her GAEA work I think is when she starts to really show her age wherein she drags down a lot of matches by her lackadaisical pace and horrendous selling, not helped by her occasional dip into nonsensical WWF Undertaker cosplay with the Super Heel shtick which got real old after like the 4th time she was indulging in it. She has a better peak than Aja, but lacks the longevity/versatility that she had, I think. That said, easy top 50 for me.

HoT have a new shirt out every single tour (and they all sell fairly well all things considered if they keep getting made) and there was a grandswell of support for him both during the match and after. They will always gravitate towards native home-grown (or at least perceived to be) talent than those from elsewhere, it's pretty ubiquitous. The main issue is, as mentioned, the Japanese economy is in the toilet right now. None of the major promotions have had particularly amazing success post-COVID (AJPW had a little boost but that's basically all gone) so the smarky idea that it's down to a particular group/individual being pushed is particularly erroneous. There are much bigger problems contributing to NJPW's business than some goofy mid-card heels.

AEW is his prime contract and is the one he'll be undertaking the most. He's "signed" to DDT as well and he has done like a couple of shows per-year. I'm sure this'll lead to a strong title shot at WK but the draw will be Tanahashi ultimately, you could have anyone in that slot and it wouldn't matter all that much. Probably This is simply untrue: many wrestlers in Japanese promotions obtain substantial roles within the companies they frequent especially Tana who's been pivotal to the admin and restructuring of NJPW since the rear-end of Inoki-Ism. He's a CEO with a board to answer to but is nevertheless the CEO. It's a substantially larger issue than it was in, say, 2005 (where it was non-existent bar memes like Kenzo Suzuki) and 2015 (where it was only in exceptional conditions/was mostly non-native stars like AJ). Now that the economy is so weak and COVID has done its damage we're seeing a lot of open season hiring by both major Western companies that rest assured will continue to happen. HoT is fine, it's the same thing as what Voodoo Murders/Makai Club were in the 2000s and other silly heel groups from even earlier than that. They sell a new shirt for them every tour and it seems like they make enough money to necessitate their existence, even if smarks hate their style (which is understandable). If they weren't profitable I imagine they wouldn't be around.

The Yen is HORRENDOUS at this point and time, Tanahashi could be the greatest businessman ever and it wouldn't mean anything, especially when the other major companies have significantly stronger currencies and thus much far more money to play with. If someone wants to leave to go to either of them for financial reasons there's not really anything he can do. Native audiences seem to have gravitated towards EVIL than Takashita; which is expected since one of them is a home-grown native who's been there for over a decade and the other isn't even signed and will never be. It's a hard sell even excluding the above to get people to spend their ever-deceasing money on frivolous things when salaries in Japan are similarly awful.

It's a weird thing to say in general tbh, to this day I still haven't seen someone make a regular snap suplex look like it could've broken someone's back like he did. The guy got the physicality element of wrestling to a far greater and sublated art than I think even a lot of modern guys have done. He might've lost a lot of that post-prime but occasionally that mentality kicks in and you get a awesome moment out of the guy.

Abby might make onto the list, and it's actually mostly off his AJPW work in the 80s/90s. The guy is a solid TV worker and I think gets some pretty solid showings against Ogawa and Akiyama respectfully (he gives Akiyama in particular a HUGE rub in their matches together and makes the guy seem like a huge prospect) and even his 90s material wherein his physicality is heavily diminished has him have some pretty solid fun outings. The tag with Anjo comes to mind there; he basically keeps the match together in that aspect. The man gets a lot of volume out of a fairly small playbook, which can be commended even if the formula by the 2000's had been reduced to slop brawling.

need to update this a little in the future when I'm not super lazy

he was quite good at taped promos, his Cena one prepping to the 2012 match comes to mind

Terrific worker, watching JWP in 2002 really makes me appreciate how great she was when every match she was in felt fun and exciting. Still probably the contender for the person with the most indie bookings per year to this very current one (to the point of having multiple matches in multiple promotions on the THE SAME DAY) which speaks to how much of a formidable workhorse she turned out to be. Comedy stuff is always hit and miss with me but you don't even need to touch that to put her on a top 100. She's got Arn-levels of consistently solid outings with greater peaks, so.....

I think footage helps Ishikawa massively in this case as well. In 2016 he was essentially ranked off his mid 90s/early 2000s work and MAYBE a little of Battlarts 2.0. thrown in (which is still shockingly underexplored) like the Greco singles and the like, in 2026 we have the advantage of knowing he was already great by 1993 (the Ishikawa/Kashin match he has in NJPW comes to mind) and the fact that he hits another mini-peak in the 2020s as you mentioned. One could absolutely make the case that he can make a #1 slot based on the level of quality maintained for about 30 years at this point.

To be fair, how much of that do we put on Cena's own inability to work a coherent heel style and how much do we then apply to the obviously screwy booking that hindered his ability to actually get heat/work as a heel? Because while obviously there's a element to Cena's own understanding that flubbed it, there's also I think clearly behind the scenes issues that prevented him from actually making any sort of consistent strides towards having those good showings

He broke it, actually. That one injury led to him suffering a series of domino effects (additional injuries/concussions) namely a nasty addiction to painkillers that he'd get from the rehab process that ultimately ended his full-time career as a wrestler.

Claudio might make a small push down the list but I think he's still going to be around the 80s slot regardless. A consequence of him being content to just be a solid mid-card tag specialist, perhaps. Sami I feel like might be viewed more positively since he did have a incredibly big babyface stint in the 2020's

For fun, I'll go through each of these and my predictions as to if they'll be higher or lower: Ospreay: Obviously will be higher, but to the extent depends on who's voting. He's a bit like marmite for a good bunch of people on here Jim Cornette: lol Tetsuya Naito: Might be a little higher due to his lackluster last couple of years. If we had this in 2018/19 I would definitely say he'd be higher up Zack Sabre Jr.: Absolutely lower, top 40/50 range. Eddie Kingston: Again absolutely lower, but again he's another divisive act on the board. I can see people sticking him from top 20 all the way to 80's/90's, so I think somewhere in the middle is where he'll lie. Dean Ambrose: Mox will be lower, but I don't actually think by that much since his title run has been very hit/miss for people. Ricochet: Lower, but not by any significant amount. Still won't make a top 100. Kenny Omega: MUCH lower down, I'm guessing he'll have a spot around about the low 20's/early 40's at worst. Tomohiro Ishii: Will make the top 100, he's only added to his case over time. Kota Ibushi: Wild ups and downs for this lad, I think if you asked during COVID he'd be in a much better spot. Will make the top 100 however will not be that far down. Minoru Suzuki: Will be higher, don't think his freelance work has really made a dent for many and his NJPW peaks are further and further out of the minds of those who voted in 2016 and first timers. Will not be in the top 100 Christian: 100% will make the top 100, I'm guessing about the 60/70 range. His AEW run has endeared him to a lot of fairly new fans and has opened new eyes to his past work. Andre The Giant: Higher if only because regency bias/no real explosion of early footage for him unlike in 2016. Brock Lesnar: Will be higher for many reasons, still think he'll be in that 50s/70s slot though. CM Punk: Again I think he'll be higher for many reasons AJ Styles: Lower, I think his late work has proven that he definitely has the chops to be a 20s/early 30s kind of candidate Mick Foley: Might be higher if only because again regency bias, but otherwise I think his spot around the position where it was in 2016 will be more or less the same. Dustin Rhodes: Lower due to his AEW stint. Not going beyond the late 20's though if even that Shawn Michaels: Very volatile, I think people will have him slightly lower John Cena: Will not budge from the #30 spot and if he does, it's going to be a fairly small movement either way. El Hijo del Santo: will be lower due to lucha footage being a lot more accessible, especially for a guy like Santo who benefits a lot from deep-cuts. Rey Mysterio Jr: MIGHT make top 5? I can definitely see it. Daniel Bryan: Again, depends on regency bias/who's voting. I can see him being #1, but also missing out to some key wrestlers.

A decent shindie hardcore brawler of the time, though people expecting the flash and showmanship of Onita from him will be epically disappointed. Matsunaga is a lot more brutal, more of a classical type where brawling and blood are the main game. He's decent at the brawling part (his kicks are solid before he busted them completely) and he gets bloody at will. I actually love his post-2000s appearances because of how unhinged they are. Here's a scrubby has-been gone mad from years of pain and disappointment pulling out a dozen knifes from his knee braces or putting people in SAW-type contraptions just for the hell of it. Sure he's sloppy, but who cares? You're not watching this stuff for clean technical masterclasses, you're watching it to watch a old fella do some painful shit that looks cool only for the people not doing it. If you have a taste for the bonkers, I would implore putting in the effort to find his performances from around that time. Would he get on a top 100? Probably not, but he's still quite entertaining nonetheless.

Solid grappler from the footage found, I just think it's not enough to really slot him in here. Maybe in the future when inevitably more material comes out can we then judge it properly.