Ma Stump Puller

Kashin was #100 on my GWE list (and I will be probably the only one with that opinion) he does have obvious low points but when I dug through around about 150+ matches of his all off the cuff I really enjoyed what he brought to the table, and seeing some of his more obscure stuff like the match with Young Lion Shibata or the Atlantis singles made me kinda realise "oh wait this guy IS cool my bad" which I always appreciate happening.

Seconded, Arai was #73 on my GME list and it was mainly because of his ridiculous attention to detail and ability to be watchable regardless of what he's doing or what opponent is in front of him. Few can pull that off reliably but with Arai it feels almost natural. Would also heavily recommend his Ironman match with Mikiya Sasaki from KOBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pxt0Sy49zQ They go 60 and about half of it is in a headscissors of all things, but I legitmately watched the entire thing in one go just because it was that engrossing.

Carlos Amano was #40 on my list, a combination of being an extremely good hand from '97 to her retirement in the mid 2010's alongside having a wide variety of solid matches with pretty much every other relevant talent around those points made her a no-brainer for me. As someone who biases consistency over a lot of other things she's the ideal candidate and she's essentially the jack of all trades with her matches being evenly spread between wacky high-energy stiff striking affairs or slower and more methodical grappling antics. The common trait in all of them is that she's a workhorse, typically doing the blunt of the bumping/selling on her own (especially against or with older talent who can't physically do it as readily as she can) alongside being very generous with how she does so; even with rookies, she’ll always give them a couple of good spots where she’ll bump big and give them the limelight even when she really has no obligation to do so. She carries the banner of being the resident great match giver in both GAEA AND JWP, sharing obligations as someone who can go out with anyone and give them a good match and push to greatness under the right conditions. Near the end she is getting a consistent spotlight at GAEA and it’s not hard to see why given the sheer amount of substantively awesome performances she had there. I wouldn't be kidding if I thought she felt like a Bret-lite figure in that her style was highly complimentary with others to the point of carrying at points depending on the person. I think the narrative of Carlos Amano works in her favor as well; she was always the least physically capable of the original JWP Four and took the longest to get great (both as a work and shoot lmao) but she was able to rely on being this timid rookie to her advantage either in a spirited early feud with her series with Bolshoi or as Ozaki’s bumbling sidekick where she more or less took a beating but was always driven to impress and focus on her positives despite still being fairly unremarkable in the fancy spot department. In tags generally she does very well in them in whatever role given, even giving a pretty out of prime Dynamite Kansai some of her I would say last truly solid affairs as this fun little/big sis dynamic where she'd do the fast portions and build to Dyna wrecking shop with her couple of spots and kicks. It's a very strong example of her being able to take any role provided and make the best out of it even if it's at somewhat her expense as a worker. Ultimately it's the fact that she feels like a Battlarts wrestler lost in time that is endearing to me, she's able to go at the usual fast-pace you would expect from the time while making it totally her own distinct style with the furry of headbutt variations or flashy submissions. That ultimately is just cool to watch for me, so seeing someone do all that while actually also being a very good wrestler is all the more the impressive.

I had these people on my ballot: #2 Kenta Kobashi #8 Kiyoshi Tamura #27 Keiji Mutoh #30 Keita Yano #32 Kurt Angle #39 Kaori Yoneyama #45 Kazunari Murakami #47 Kazuyuki Fujita #73 Kenichiro Arai #78 Kana/Asuka #82 Kenoh #100 Kendo Kashin

Kobashi was actually a pretty good grappler when he was inclined (one of his VERY early matches had a bunch of submission-throwing by him) his Johnny Smith match from 2000 also comes to mind, naturally we have all of Kawada's attempts to grapple with his shoot-style flirtations, but yeah out of the five Akiyama was the most talented when it came to conventional matworking yeah. The Hase match alone kinda defines that point.

This is an exhibition but I'd argue it's a lot closer to a clear worked-shoot than actually shooting, especially with the very shticky-spots like Minoru doing heel antics with fakeout handshakes and turnbuckle bashing that, needless to say, is not commonplace in actual MMA. That makes me think alone that this could be considered a return to pro-wres for the man, even if it wasn't 100% overt yet like it was in 2003.

Nagata was #51 on my submitted list, mostly down to his longevity and wide streak of strong showings. The man is not without his faults and I think he can at times fall to predictable formulas but you've got at this point about 2 decades of great work on his end, so not a shocker that he ends up there.

Akiyama's first year (he debuted in 1992, but he was only around for the last 3 months so we can't really count that as a "year") had him in prominent singles against Steve Williams, Kawada, DiBiase, Kobashi x2, then a bunch of tags. In all of them he's pretty solid and I think despite not being near the quality he would be he holds his own there. I'd say he did better than Senka though it's not as far apart as you may imagine. I put her relatively high on my VP100 list for this year and she ended up 85th overall, which for someone who just debuted is fairly insane. Tamura only wrestled a couple of times in his first year but he was already pretty fucking good, maybe over Senka in terms of quality. Hashimoto we have very little of for his first two years but he was pretty much already great and the matches we do have show him way above his class as a finished product.

His match vs Hiroshi Hase in 1995 is a lot of fun for a relatively short match

true!

100% Lock: Hiroshi Tanahashi Hiroshi Hase Maybe? HARASHIMA Harley Saito

Can be enjoyable (the DDT tag with Ishii is astonishingly good) and I really liked him in Battlarts but there are so many awful matches he's been apart of that I can not in good faith endorse him for something like this.

Potential #1 Genichiro Tenryu Definitely has a spot GENTARO Giant Baba Gran Hamada Maybe? Gunther Greg Valentine Gran Naniwa

Has a spot: Daisuke Ikeda Devil Masami Dick Togo Dynamite Kansai Mostly There: Dump Matsumoto Dragon Kid Maybe?: Daisuke Sekimoto Darby Allin

100% lock: Command Bolshoi Chigusa Nagayo Carlos Amano Almost There: Carl Greco Chihiro Hashimoto Christian Curt Hennig Maybe: Cesaro CM Punk Christopher Daniels

Will almost conclusively have a spot on top 100: Aja Kong AJ Styles Akira Maeda Antonio Inoki Akira Hokuto Akira Taue Has a chance of showing up: Abdullah The Butcher Atsushi Onita Alexander Otsuka Arisa Nakajima

As someone who ran the Yuiga propaganda train for quite a while I am unfortunately remiss to say that she will not be on my top 100. She's terrific at what she does though and is probably the GOAT at intergender matches. I could definitely see her having a slot for some people.

I think people really overlook his pre-comedy stuff, Yano wasn't a solid wrestler but he was better than most at being a dangerous spoiler-heel who could chain enough bullshit together to catch anyone unawares, and his more bloody showings involving his work with the WEW belt are pretty fucking cool. In another world the guy would've been scrapping with Carlos Colon in some dingy stadium. Can't see a world where he gets top 100 though

I like Taichi more than most, I enjoyed him when he was a hapless rookie seconding Kawada in places like HUSTLE or AJPW, I was one of the few who actually liked his Jr heavyweight stint where he just stooged and stalled for most of his matches, etc etc. I'm somewhat mixed on his material today since it seems like he's relented to becoming a NJPWism upper main event guy who needs to have 30+ minute affairs with endless false finishes and forearms while also occasionally doing something Kawada did for the sake of it. I enjoy when he's pushed outside his comfort zone like his KOPW series with Shingo, but those aren't often enough these days so his material is (mostly) just acceptable tag matches with a good match every couple of months. When he's allowed to do a bit more I think he's tolerable than most at the style however.

Yeah the JWP fancam files give Ran some pretty stellar showings; she was a far greater natural when it came to working than some of her contemporaries, even if she didn't have the same success they had overall. Had some of the most awesome elbow shots since at least Misawa and from my viewing always came across as a super worker that just never got the spotlight deserved of them. Shout out to her never having a bad match with Carlos Amano, though with their joint consistency I imagine that would be next to impossible. Maybe has a slot in the upper regions.

One of the stronger characters in regards to playing the "washed up uncle who comes down to the ring to harass old work colleagues and blackmailing promoters for the Yakuza" role, and he does that fairly well I'd say. The Marufuji match is one of the few I've actually enjoyed that involved the latter in them, for instance, which is high praise. Don't think his career has the high-spots needed for a top 100 though.

Sadly of no fault of his own his career was far too short for me to really grade him on a top 100. That said, solid wrestler with a really wicked technical edge to them.

if you haven't watched the GENTARO match i'd heavily recommend it, very much one of the essentials

Clipped by 3 minutes. This was a pretty good starter, Yagi and Plum were sharp technical wrestlers and they showcase that aplenty here with lots of opposing joint and limb work from the pair, there's a good tit for tat with Yagi doing her usual goofy foot-biting in leg work and Plum answering by trying to break her elbow in a couple of pieces that naturally showcases the kind of grittiness that only two seasoned grapplers would understand. They do a great job as well of balancing the more faster pace with the submission work as Yagi sells the effected limb when in motion and so focuses more on her Judoka throws as opposed to the more high-risk stuff; whenever she does try to match Plum's more speedy offence later on in the match she utterly pays for it because Plum can scout her way better than vice versa with counters into submissions. Plum seems to have the more effective hold work as well, Yagi is faster on account of her background but Plum does these really tricked out modifications like a kneebar into figure-four that showcase her higher level of experience by comparison. The pace is still obviously dictated by the fact that this is still an opener so the two make sure to keep things energetic up until the very end when Yagi goes for a sick second rope Fujiwara armbar and gets the shocking upset victory over her more experienced opponent. Solid sprint and extremely fun from start to end, about as good as an opener like this is gonna get quite frankly. The more Yagi I watch the more I'm impressed with her potential GWE case....

WOW I did not know this was filmed (all the thanks to Kadaveri for digging it up) and am all the much better knowing that it was and actually perfectly preserved for IBUKI standards. Rookie Arisa Nakajima is definitely talented; despite her relative lack of experience here wherein even basic stuff like dropkicks can come out funny, she had already a very strong understanding of things that some simply never get the hang of, in this case selling. Nakajima does a terrific job selling, struggling, and fighting her way out of every hold that Yoshida is able to throw her in, conveying just enough to showcase her lack of advantage while never making herself seem overtly weak as to seem passive or not willing to fight back. Whenever there's a hold applied or one to be used she's always applying agency to either escape the hold but failing that to at least reach a rope instead. For much of the first half this is the formula we see as Yoshida does a solid job as always doing her submission-bullying antics, flowing well with every attempt and keeping the momentum going just enough that the match doesn't grind to a halt whenever she does apply her holds fully. Nakajima keeps in the game with more or less just defence until she starts to slowly edge out any sort of advantage with whatever she can chain together, generally simple moves like DDT variations. Yoshida however takes these with strides and continues to hunt for submissions, in particular honing in on the arms as a weak point with really cool modifications. The second half of the match becomes more explosive and inevitably with greater speed as Nakajima does some pretty sweet flash pins and rollups alongside top rope dropkicks to really hammer in that she's just throwing anything at the table to get the most out of her fleeting offence. We get some more struggles over submissions as Yoshida inevitably finds a opening to slap on a long cross armbreaker that the two women do a masterful job selling the sheer work involved on both sides as Nakajima has to roll around and manically find the ropes to escape the danger she's in. Yoshida also hits a pretty disgusting flush boot to the face that despite looking like murder was somehow not the end of the match as they manage to convey a nice crescendo piece where the vet gets far too confident trying to win and almost pays for it with Nakajima snapping on a very abrupt 2.9 rollup to escape another armbar attempt. Despite a neat escape from an Air Raid Yoshida is able to parry a forearm shot into the Spider Twist for the submission victory. This isn't astonishing in terms of content: there's no miraculously crazy spots or anything of that sort: but Nakajima here proves more than anything that, despite losing, her talent was pretty much undeniable even at this early point; her timing here is incredible but most importantly she 100% understands how to progress from bit to bit without losing the sense of legitimate struggle or fatigue. She gets bursts of action, sure, but there's always a tying back to her inevitable difference in hierarchy, that sense of impending doom where she's bound more or less to lose eventually. Yoshida similarly does obviously a great job at that and also working with those advantages to make a well-crafted match that has just enough of her opponent to be a showcase of her ability without it seeming too much like padding. Could've been the standard Yoshida Bully match we've seen a good couple of times but thankfully this is much better than just that. Sadly these two would not have a rematch a couple years down the line when Nakajima was considerably more capable and experienced yet for what it's worth this is still nevertheless pretty good by itself.