Ma Stump Puller

I've been watching a ton of 90's/2000's Tiger Mask (namely RJPW work) and while there's some stinkers within the batch, he's definitely got a improved case for this based on what I've seen. Considerably adaptable in tags or singles against a super wide variety of opponents from a good match series with Suzuki to 5-minute sprints with a noob Ibushi and Otani to a brutal Takayama match all the way to having probably the last great match with old man Tenryu, can still go surprisingly well for his age and size, good technical stuff etc. Somehow also had a decent feud with no-knees Onita that didn't completely stink up the place. I'll have a more detailed examination up soon but I would suggest searching around for some of his stuff there.

Yeah Miz was never a workrate darling or anything but he's incredibly good at the fundamentals and works around them excellently with his heel persona: when matched with someone who can equally perform on his level as a babyface, you get some actually really great matches at times. Never forget that it was Miz that got mid-card hell Ziggler to maybe his best match in years.

I can get why she's here to a certain extent considering we have Trish (who could be argued as having less big big matches to work with than Mickie despite her having more of a impact overall) on here as well, albeit that wasn't exactly taken very seriously. She's had some super nothing title runs (not her fault of course because booking and the divisions at the time being bare bones as shit until way later) and I always used to cringe when she was in TNA trying to work with people who mostly couldn't really work (at least 5+ matches anyway) albeit she did eventually start to get better opponents and brought some legitimacy to the division. For what it's worth, I feel like she's a fairly solid act that even in her very very early days showed a lot of promise and athleticism right off the bat, and did eventually mature to a good upper-card act that sorta became a expert in carrying less able acts to good matches. Top 100 is the issue through, because as other have said there's a LOT of acts that were more beneficial in that they got to work with great opponents right off the bat and have far far better high ends than her at the moment. I didn't feel anything for the Purrazzo matches (maybe that's because I just don't like her style at all lol) and James's high ends are few and far between to compare. Like she's had good matches, but the vast majority of them for me just equate to just being, well, decent. She's sound in the ring and showed she could work with some of the better wrestlers but I would need to really see some truly big performances for her to have a shot, even as a outsider pick. Give her a few more years with her current workrate, then I'll rethink this.

Never really got Ambrose/Moxley at all, he just seems like a overly obnoxious "tough guy" stereotype with some loose brawling behind him and surprisingly sloppy wrestling at times. He's good when he has to rely less on his rep and focuses on having fun matches that don't drag a lot. NJPW was the only place where I actively tolerated his antics because he didn't always turn his matches into trash brawls with crazy spots, which he always seems to devolve into when given too much leeway: it works in big blood feuds (Ishii match excluding) but I hated his KENTA match and whatnot. As noted above, he's also very noticeable when he's not really engaged and struggles to have B-show performances without looking like he'd rather be elsewhere, of which he has YEARS of WWE material where that's the case. He's got great energy when he's on, the opposite is sadly true as well. The guy needs a hot crowd, a fairly solid opponent, and the right conditions suiting him to have a properly great match. Not saying he hasn't had matches that I've enjoyed a ton, but way out of the top 100 zone by far. Maybe there's a X-Factor I'm not seeing.

It's sad when this 6 year old comment still applies to Dolph today. I remember people used to go crazy about the guy because he could do a good flip sell and had some solid enough matches back in the day, but he's mutated into this terrible Shawn Michaels/Hennig clone without any of the charisma, showmanship, or any of the character work that either man had both outside and inside the ring. The fact that people maintain that he wasn't booked strong despite a huge amount of title shots and main event outings is beyond me. He's had plenty of time to improve or innovate, he just doesn't want to do so. Perfectly fine as a low-mid card act but he's really bad at doing these fake big epic main event matches that take 30 or so minutes and devolve into finish spamming. He's the kind of guy that seen guys take insane bumps but didn't really get the pacing or the buildup to them, so he just copies it randomly on almost any form of big offence. Those factors end up making you incredibly fatigued after a while because there's NOTHING else apart from that. When Miz + the threat of retiring needs to emotionally carry you to your most engaging match in years, it says too much about how hollow his style really is. Nowhere on the top 200 for me.

The January 20 one? Yeah, that's great. Love the fact that Taue's obsession with hitting his big bombs to punish Akiyama for his stubbornness keeps costing him his advantage, and how that urge to be Mr. Big Bully Taue fucks him over in the end

I wish I could put Honda on the 100 but he's just so inconsistent. Most of AJPW material is him being either incredibly green or being incredibly lazy: what I mean by this is that he essentially just drags a match along with headlocks, headbutts, and maybe the odd other move or two. He's so minimalistic that it really hurts him a ton when considering overall match quality. Honda has some pretty good matches, but they are spaced between a lot of lazy bullshit, which is annoying given his incredible work in NOAH and further beyond. He CAN be great, he just actively chose not to do so unless stakes were involved, and even then you can argue that these were created by having world-class wrestlers getting him to his best. What bugs me even more is that his rookie stuff showed that he could really work great if he gave a damn, because despite having no heat/no real experience, he's naturally super strong, good on his feet, and has some neat showings. Some highlights (bolded are particular matches where he shines best: for the sake of not going over old ground I'm not covering his really obvious highlights like the Kobashi/Akiyama matches) Tamon Honda vs. Hayato Mashita (Fortune Dream 1, 2014) Go Shiozaki & Tamon Honda vs. Mohammed Yone & Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH 14.04.2012) Go Shiozaki, Takuma Sano & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. KENTA, Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda (27.04.2008) KENTA, Mohammed Yone & Takeshi Morishima vs. Kenta Kobashi, Tamon Honda & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (17.02.2006) Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda vs. Minoru Suzuki & Naomichi Marufuji (17.05.2005) Akitoshi Saito, Jun Akiyama & Makoto Hashi vs. KENTA, Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda (23.06.2004) Akitoshi Saito, Jun Akiyama, Makoto Hashi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. KENTA, Kenta Kobashi, Naomichi Marufuji & Tamon Honda (23.08.2003) Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda vs. Togi Makabe & Yoshihiro Takayama (16.07.2003) Akitoshi Saito & Jun Akiyama vs. Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda (06.06.2003) Akitoshi Saito, Jun Akiyama, Makoto Hashi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. KENTA, Kenta Kobashi, Tamon Honda & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (14.05.2003) Shinya Hashimoto & Tadao Yasuda vs Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda (ZERO-ONE Truth Century Creation II 18.04.2001) Naomichi Marufuji & Tamon Honda vs. Path Finder & Scorpio (24.06.2001) Daisuke Ikeda vs. Tamon Honda (29.03.2001) Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa (18.02.2001) Kentaro Shiga & Takeshi Morishima vs. Takashi Sugiura & Tamon Honda (08.01.2001) Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa (AJPW 27.11.1999) Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Jun Izumida & Tamon Honda (16.01.1999) Tamon Honda & Toshiaki Kawada vs. The Lacrosse & Yoshihiro Takayama (25.07.1997) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Tamon Honda (17.01.1997: me personally, I wouldn't put this here but it DID get a big reaction from the crowd, so.....) Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada (12.01.1996) Johnny Ace, Ricky Santana & Steve Williams vs. Jun Akiyama, Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda (20.08.1994) Akira Taue & Tamon Honda vs. Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi (03.06.1994) Stan Hansen vs Tamon Honda (AJPW 31.05.1994)

I feel like people are more on board with the concept of Morishima than the execution: the idea of a big Terry Gordy/Jumbo hybrid going around beating the shit out of whoever is in front of them while being a complete monster in the process sounds awesome, and for what it's worth, Morishima for most of his RoH run and his mid 2000's NOAH work is mostly very well done. He's a fun tag worker with Rikio and gets incredibly over with the NOAH crowd: people forget how loud they were for the guy when he's just running all over people: but gets incredibly cooled down by a shitty Misawa match where the poor man almost dies after a bad concussion and Morishima, the rampaging monster, is quietly put down by Misawa with a elbow to the face, sent to ROH for his historic title reign, and by the time he DOES eventually beat Misawa, the allure is long gone and he's just not the same anymore. Morishima has a pretty bad Achilles Heel: he can't really do long-form matches well, by that I mean anything beyond 20 minutes tends to lose steam unless it's something really special. He's just not that kind of worker in my opinion and it cripples him when he needs to do big GHC main event epics. He does get some solid enough matches later on but these are marred with a lot of half-assed performances, "health issues" (most likely underlining alcoholism) and Cho Kibou-Gun garbage where he's a near EVIL tier heel of consistent interference, ref knockouts, and other just general weak ways to get around actually having to wrestle. Even Nagata couldn't get much out of the lad at that point. His potential was huge, but there's way too many times where I've seen Morishima in action and he's just...bleh, doing all of his signature moves and nothing else, putting all of the baggage onto his opponent. Morishima bouts in the 2010's are dictated by how generous his opponent is basically. When he's on, he's fantastic, health issues be damned, but there's just way too much mediocrity to put him on a top 100.

Do I get him being here? Yes. Do I agree? Not really. I've watched a fair chunk of his stint in AJPW and while he most definitely has bright spots, he's not really got those "holy shit this dude is great" moments I got from Albright or Ace in their big matches. He's a reliable hand and certainly has had great matches (with great hands and one of the hottest babyfaces around in that era alongside him, mind you) but he's the weakest part of GET and doesn't really stand out in weekly TV showings, even in full matches where he's fighting tip top talent at the time and getting prime spots to show off. He has a pretty solid hot tag and knows how to play to the crowd incredibly well at the apron, nipping at the heels and getting all amped up whenever Kobashi starts to fight back: his offence in turn is also quite explosive at times and he's pretty reliable all in all, doesn't really botch or muck up anything. Ace by comparison has the same dynamic and has the benefit of numerous big tag matches with multiple different members: Patriot has GET and a super unremarkable run with George Hines as The Eagle in which they lost a lot. Maybe there's something I'm missing but from what I have watched, he's a good tag specialist but really nothing special in the wrong run unless surrounded by far bigger stars. It would take a lot for him to have a slot on the top 100.

I really don't agree with the idea that Ishii was or is "one note" or "just goes for strike exchanges and/or elbow shots" especially when you look at the stuff he's been putting out. He can be a comedic straight man tagging with complete goofs (or facing against them like his series with Yano) a underdog going up against bigger sized guns, a grumpy vet trying to put down stubborn new blood that won't quit, carrying undercard acts to bigger and better things, playing cat and mouse with bigger and tougher guys or having to claw through the antics of dirty heels. Yes, Ishii has (mostly) one way of wrestling these days: it's what got him to the dance in the first place: but the idea that he just goes into everything with the Shibata lens and goes gun-ho is just inaccurate in general. He's a very competent storyteller that just tends to focus on a single format to actually tell them.

After watching that Kawabata match, I definitely have to say he's edging a place in the top 100. Guy took a green as grass ex-sumo who hadn't even been wrestling for a full year to a very well done sub-15 match that didn't drag, had a great balance of offence and comedy, and got great reactions from the crowd who were initially pretty dry for this. That's incredible talent and something I think even some of the bigger names would have issues with, yet gets done here with no struggle.

I think one aspect of Nagata's career that gets overlooked a lot is his NOAH runs. In them, Nagata plays a babyface fighting against the odds and a invading force with one of the smuggest auras I've seen, both excellently while making sure to get over his opponents a ton. His first run has him have a underwhelming bout with Kobashi but also some great hard hitting action against some of their biggest stars, never feeling lesser than them in the process (well, outside of the Kobashi bout, but no one thought he was going to win that anyway) as well as his short lived GHC Tag title run that gets some great personality out of a fairly dry Tanahashi at the time. His second is a complete different dynamic: Nagata is being phased out of the main event scene in NJPW, but also has to then has to do the opposite as NOAH's drastic downturn and lack of star power after Go's departure alongside many other powerhouses forces them to pull from wherever to fill places. He has to be a major Global League contender and then later on has to actually become GHC Champion because of this fact. Despite all of this going on, Nagata has a legit great run with the belt, excluding a shit match with Maybach. He's consistently having fun matches with whomever while also doing NJPW bookings in-between, which is pretty nuts if you ask me. In both of these runs, Nagata excels in his roles and manages to be a big workhorse, giving NOAH a proper heel as his title run goes further and further and he, in turn, gets more and more cocky. Here are some definitive suggestions for these runs. Highlighted are particular high points. 1st Run Jun Akiyama & Yuji Nagata vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (17.02.2002) Masao Inoue vs. Yuji Nagata (14.05.2003) Akira Taue & Takashi Sugiura vs. Takuma Sano & Yuji Nagata (01.06.2003) Akira Taue vs. Yuji Nagata (06.06.2003) Jun Akiyama vs. Yuji Nagata (16.07.2003) Kenta Kobashi vs. Yuji Nagata (12.09.2003: this is quite good, just not as perhaps interesting as it could have been) Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuji Nagata vs. Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda (30.11.2003) Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuji Nagata vs. Takeshi Morishima & Takeshi Rikio (06.12.2003) Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuji Nagata vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa (10.01.2004) 2nd Run Jun Akiyama & KENTA vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & Yuji Nagata (24.07.2010) Go Shiozaki vs. Yuji Nagata (03.11.2012) KENTA vs. Yuji Nagata (17.11.2012) Takashi Sugiura vs. Yuji Nagata (26.10.2013) Takeshi Morishima vs. Yuji Nagata (10.11.2013) KENTA vs. Yuji Nagata (07.12.2013) Takashi Sugiura vs. Yuji Nagata (08.03.2014) Mohammed Yone vs. Yuji Nagata (17.05.2014: this is a carryjob, but it is quite good regardless) Naomichi Marufuji vs. Yuji Nagata (05.07.2014) Chris Hero vs. Yuji Nagata (18.10.2014) Mikey Nicholls vs. Yuji Nagata (21.10.2014) Masato Tanaka vs. Yuji Nagata (04.11.2014) Takashi Sugiura vs. Yuji Nagata (07.11.2014)

I definitely think this thread needs a update. At the time this was posted, Zack was still in his Indie-riffic tendencies, submission spamming, incredibly goofy matchups and a tendency to just sorta stick to a one-note style that while he was definitely fairly solid at, he just kinda....didn't do a lot that felt rational, if that makes any sense. Yes, his NOAH work was definitely a low spot for him for the most part outside of some fairly good Ogawa tags (and I side that more with Ogawa being, well, really solid than anything else) but for what it's worth, I think he's stepped up a lot since then. He's proven he can be a shit-eating heel and a surprisingly effective tweener in the Tekkers, had some incredible G1 performances, as well as a very underrated indie run of tip-top matches in the mid 2010's along with a fun stint in EVOLVE. Despite how objectively trash the NJPW tag team scene is at the moment, he's been a consistent high spot with whomever is against him, even getting the dreadful SANADA to something presentable. There's a huge case for him being a top 100 at the moment, let alone if he keeps his level of quality up for a few more years afterwards.

I got a big soft spot for the guy. Great tag specialist, solid in the fundamentals but could work a crowd incredibly well for himself and was such a gift at character work that he actively chose to hide his technical gifts in matches in order to play a more effective antagonist. The fact that he could keep up with a prime RVD while playing such a slimy heel is incredibly impressive on his part, and a true sign of his brilliance. For what it's worth, even when he was reduced to mostly working mostly less significant matches in his AJPW material around about the mid 90's, he still stood out from the pack with his abilities: I mean for god sake he got the crowd to chant for Giant Kimala lol. That's a momentous task to be had, especially when sharing the ring with guys like Kobashi and whatnot. People always go over his usual biggest hits but I feel like there's a lot of underrated material that doesn't always get picked up on, especially his match series with a pre Rat Boy Ogawa and whatnot. He's a lot better as a tag worker but he could still throw out some solid material in singles. Definitely has a spot on the top 100 for me.

He's a great talker, I'll give him that. Guy can work a crowd like nobody's business. In terms of workrate, he's a lot more iffy and tends to not be capable of carrying very well against opponents that are below his skill level, especially when he's demotivated and can't be bothered. Like a good few other wrestlers, you can tell when Punk doesn't care and when he does, namely by how he conducts himself in the ring. Sure, many have this quality: it's only natural after all: but Punk is particularly noticeable. This has the opposite effect when he DOES care: the Cena series, Joe bouts and Undertaker WM fight are all examples of a motivated Punk giving some big fire in his responses. Punk is far better as a heel than as a face. I never brought him as a face personally: he's just not really built for that role in general, and that's fine. Him suiting a crazed zealot or a egomaniac just comes more naturally, and he makes heat so easy to grasp that it's almost insulting at points. IWA crowds hated the crap out of him at points. I just hate when he tried the "cool heel" stuff he tended to lean into at times and more the out and out mean heel he showcases a lot during his early days. Like workrate wise, he's painfully average and likely would've been dumped in the undercard of any major Japanese promotion, which is probably why he never attempted to do so like his peers at the time. That and, well, most of his moveset was stolen from other guys anyway, so he probably would've got confused reactions like Joe did when he went over to NOAH for those disastrous matches. His indie stuff from what I've seen has mostly aged well.....most, anyway. There's annoying tendencies that pop up that do get annoying, way too many overkill finishes for one. Would Punk get a top 100 spot? Eh. While he has really big high spots in his career, there's a lot of, well, nothing in-between, and even those high spots are marred by bad payoffs or whatnot. If we were doing top 100 promos, he'd have a spot easily. He might have one in general but it would need to be quite high up given there are countless acts that can run circles around him. His current AEW work doesn't really set me one way or another: he's had good matches at best and completely dull ones at worst, I'll need to see how he does when he inevitably moves up the card. I want to see what a Danielson could do with current Punk mainly.

In his prime, he was very competent in the ring and when he was with guys who could really squeeze something from a good hand, he could have some pretty solid matches, not gonna lie. I think if someone honestly went back to his earlier days and did a deep dive, they could very easily get a list of good to great showings that he was in, especially during his tag days with Punk, whom he worked well with. How much of that is his own talent and how much is him sharing the ring with some of the best of that era (including Styles, Joe, Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, etc etc) is another matter through. I hate his comedy shtick so much. He's the main reason why I usually skip a lot of undercard comedy matches in the first place: repetitive bullshit that relies on his opponents looking like complete dumbasses and essentially burying them for a cheap pop. For some bizarre reason NOAH kept having him be showcased going over legit top talent for no fucking reason, stunk up the ring every time he wasn't sharing it with Hero alongside him. It's sad that he's the most well known comedy worker when there's guys that completely trump his nonsense with half of the opportunities he has. No way he gets in the top 300, let alone anything near the main list. Guy has tried so hard to get rid of the comedy ceiling and he just can't now, even when back in RoH and having all of the resources and experience to do so: that is a true sign of bad character work.

One match that I would highly recommend is actually her last official match back in Marvelous against Iroha. Despite the fact that she's obviously very limited, she puts in a great performance against her younger apprentice with raw intensity and crowd connection. It's a solid showing for her ability to work a match without her amazing ring skill that she had in earlier decades and not only do well, but knock it out of the park while doing pretty little in terms of big workrate spots. It's a bit hard to find but definitely give it a watch, it's very good.

Got a link? The only match I seen of them against each other was a incredibly rushed showing in SWS.

I love the guy in AJPW undercard 6-man tags with his delayed selling and grumpy uncle vibes but I've seen nothing of his prime work that suggests he's a top 100 recommendation at all. Even at his peak, he was always limited as to what he could and couldn't do and usually needed someone a lot more competent to lead him to a good match. He was a good prototypical brawler type but exactly HOW good he was will never probably be known fully because all of his early nasty cage stuff that got him his rep never made it to tape. Sure, he was a ace, but he wasn't a particularly interesting one. Frankly, Elgin and Momota have way better track records (especially Elgin, who is deservingly more solid than you think he is from his comedy stuff) to work with, but that's another topic for another day.

You know what? Fuck it. Time for some match writeups about Sapp. This is probably a terrible idea but it's worth showcasing some of his bright (ish) spots. Not including his more obvious solo showings with Nakamura or Akiyama, if only because people know about them already. Danshoku Dino vs. Bob Sapp (DDT Peter Pan, 24.07.2011) This is billed as a "Special Rules Match" AKA it's MMA, so rounds and breaks here. Dino is surprisingly alright here, playing a blend of goofy comedic act that thinks he's the next Inoki all of a sudden and a legitimate underdog babyface when things inevitably go to pot. Sapp plays along with Dino's antics until he gets hit in the balls, getting him mad. This involves some big slams, some funny outside brawling and even beating up people not involved in the match because he's just that mad. Dino gets his revenge in the second round with....a combo of low blows? He then does a Dragon Screw notion while holding on to Sapp's groin, which was pretty funny. Sapp's selling is also super solid as he shrieks in terror while this destruction is going on and frails around frantically to escape Dino's grasp. One thing I can say about this match is that Sapp is perfectly game to play along with all of this silly shit and making it as exaggerated as possible. He gets what wrestling is about ultimately, which is more of a pantomime than anything else; there's no ego to be found from the guy despite clearly having the reputation to outright tell DDT and co to fuck off with what they were doing here. I mean ffs, he even gets a full head-in-groin Danshoku Driver here no problem. Through Bob's offence is mostly pretty basic, the crowd eat up his last domination section here in the third round as he takes back control: him making fun of the consistent Dino chants gets him big heat as well. While Sapp's offence is, again, basic, he does nail a fantastic Kobashi-lite standing lariat that takes Dino's head off for a convincing near 10 count. Eventually he misses a second one, gets Dino'd with all of his signature spots, and then trapped in a desperate Gedo Clutch for the win. Obviously your mileage on Dino as a worker will vary but for what it's worth, this is a good example of a near perfect Bob Sapp match: all of the main spots are done by someone else, he gets in his big offence and pops the crowd, plays a solid monster, etc. The comedic stuff is also well done and Sapp is a good sport, selling some incredibly goofy offence far better than a lot of actual full time wrestlers could. Aja Kong, Atsushi Onita & Shogun Okamoto vs. Bob Sapp, Jaguar Yokota & TARU (ZERO-ONE Bob Sapp Current Blast! 12.05.2017) Honestly, I loved this if only for how trashy it was. It's such a bizarre matchup that it somehow works, and even despite the conditions, Aja Kong and Yokota do actually have some decent exchanges with each other workrate wise, and Yokota was way more mobile than you'd expect her to be here considering her advanced age. While everyone else was at different degrees of limited, they do as best as they can here with them. Bob Sapp is a good giant to have throw around the other guys here, Onita gets a fairly solid pop when he gets his comeback going (despite some truly terrible stunners and double suplex attempts) Okamoto was a fine third party brawler, and TARU was a mega shit heel as per standard, consistently getting in the way of the other team's big efforts. As a match objectively, this is a big old trash brawl with some of the most awkward pacing around. Subjectively, it's a dumb hardcore bout that manages to be charming despite the circumstances: it's entertaining, and I think that's the main aim to come into this with. Bob Sapp is obviously quite beaten up by this point but he suits a cartoony Onita-style foil way better than you would expect. Bob Sapp vs. HG (HUSTLEMANIA, 25.11.2007) This is another one where Sapp's ability to play the monster in danger comes into play here. He's fighting against HG who's probably HUSTLE's biggest home-grown star and very much over even if somewhat limited wrestling wise. Sapp spends most of the match on top with his usual big chops, punches, and slams, but also sells pretty strong for HG's dumb offence, most of which is focused around HG's (kayfabe) homoeroticism as he attacks Sapp's groin or uses his own as a formidable weapon, namely countering a powerbomb into a Triangle Choke into a pin or just slamming it into his face at times lol. Even if his selling at points is somehow doing too little or too much (like he barely budges from a full on dropkick to the back, but a simple enzuigiri sends him flying out of the ring at top speeds) he's pretty reliable here when it comes to making HG's comebacks look pretty solid. He eventually takes over with his usual power moves, but also nails a actually pretty great front dropkick that gets some good height on it. Needless to say, very impressive. Eventually Sapp hits a final powerbomb to end things. This is a nice short match that cuts a good bit of filler and just goes into the pair hitting moves on each other, albeit Sapp dominating for the most part. He puts over HG as having the skills to knock him around, but ultimately falls just short of handling The Beast in action. Not a amazing match but a good short bout. Bob Sapp & Monster Soldier vs Genichiro Tenryu and Shiro Koshinaka (HUSTLE TOUR, 16.10.2008) This is really only here because Tenryu goes nuts and hits a top rope flipping senton to the outside at the start. For what reason, I don't know, but it's incredibly awesome to see in action. Monster Soldier and co all put on fairly solid performances, but one can argue that Sapp is the guy that functions as the glue of the match here. He plays the inpatient hot tag when Monster Soldier gets worked over against the pair, he gets big heat when he interrupts the two fan favourites during their offence, and while his worked punches are pretty bad, both Koshinaka and Tenryu get good exchanges out of him, in particular the latter: Korakuen roars when Tenryu and Sapp start throwing hands and his eventual big suplex gets big cheers from the crowd, especially after Sapp had been terrorising the pair all match long. This is another well built match that plays to Sapp's strengths, in which he's fairly good at in general, albeit his strikes are pretty bad lol. The crowd really got into this one, but I felt like it wasn't just because they were well receptive to the wrestlers here, it was also because of some good pacing on their part and some fairly basic heel/face dynamics that got the crowd invested into this. Definitely check out this out for a fun outing. Bob Sapp & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Osamu Nishimura (NJPW Yokohama Dead Out, 03.11.2003) I mentioned this above as a example of a proper good Bob Sapp match, and I wanted to go into more detail about why this is. For a bonus, Nishimura was doing double god damn duty here as he was also working the opening 6-man card prior to this. In terms of Sapp in general, he works well here with Nakanishi and Nishimura for different reasons. For Nakanishi, both men can work the big powerhouse style fairly solid, and even if Nakanishi was never particularly great, he pulls a solid job here with his facials, completely selling Sapp as a complete monster despite him being quite green (I mean he's only wrestled two matches in a year before this, so understandable) but for what it's worth, Sapp's offence looks completely fine for the most part and he fits his role quite well. You'd think Sapp: a big power wrestler who isn't really known for technical work whatsoever: and Nishimura, who's, well, all about technical work probably wouldn't click together, but they probably have some of the best exchanges here. Nishimura takes him down to the mat and does his usual routine, but Sapp legitimately keeps up well with the guy, even doing his signature handstand at one point. The spot where Sapp just has enough and lifts him from the floor to the turnbuckle before doing making fun of Nishimura's "clean break" chest slap gets a great response from the crowd and was pretty cool. They later go into Nishimura's test of strength sequence, with Sapp eventually just having enough of his shit and throwing him right over his head. While Nakamura is obviously the better worker here, he spends most of the match being worked over by the other pair due to a shoulder injury, with Sapp only being able to hit small pockets of offence when him and Nakanishi get into it with some brawls. For what it's worth, what Sapp does here works, even if you can equate some of that to his opponents being solid foils for him. He regardless does wrestle good here for his role, and gets some big reactions when he hits huge power moves on the pair. All in all, while Bob Sapp is a meme (and for obvious reasons given his insanely huge push in the early 2000's) he does eventually mature into a actually half decent worker, capable of being a serious brick of a monster while also working a comedic side that's very underrated. He kinda reminds me of Vince in a way that Vince obviously isn't a very good wrestler, but he's very entertaining to watch and is willing to make a complete fool of himself for the sake of making the match better. Definitely not top 100 in terms of workrate, but he's also got a unfair stigma around him that he doesn't really deserve. Get someone in with him that knows what they are doing, and Sapp can work way better than you think.

If this was "top 100 draws" in wrestling, Sapp would be in a fair position for himself given how insanely popular he was as a pop-culture figure. For what it's worth, I think he's not the worst of the worst and has had some fairly decent matches when paired with people who can bump around for him. Him and Osamu Nishimura actually had a pretty good sequence together back in NJPW, through I think that was more Nishimura being a amazing carry than Sapp's own qualities. Limited, sure, wouldn't get nowhere near a top 100, but he's got some stuff worth checking out: in particular his match series against Manabu Nakanishi and some of his IGF work if only for how bizarre some of the matches were. He also had a ZERO-ONE exploding barbed wire baseball bat 6-man with Onita and co that was pretty entertaining.

I definitely agree with this. Seeing Sakuraba do NOAH-style strike exchanges with Marufuji and just outright letting him chop him as hard as possible with no resistance makes zero fucking sense. When he isn't doing that, he's doing incredibly slow, tenseless technical work that gets overextended a lot. He's great in short bursts of action but anything paced longer is a struggle.

I do remember watching some very early Kong and being impressed by how good she was already for someone who had maybe a year or so actual ring work at that point. The main issue is that most of her Japan work came during a time where Joshi wrestling in general was on a major downturn and actual footage was incredibly hard to check out. I'll need to do a deep dive soon to see what's up with that these days. That being said, she's a great sprint worker and a solid monster role when paired with someone who can play a equally impressive underdog alongside her. Top 100 material? Me personally at the moment, I don't see it.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts on the matter. I'm obviously not incredibly privy to the exact consensus people have exactly on this site: but generally I see Taue being either omitted a lot outside of the usual big hits people cite or just outright ignored at points, especially on more popular forums. This is a baseline opinion that's obviously not centred to any one niche area naturally. The rest of your post does bring up good points in all fairness, I'll need to think those through. That being said, Akiyama is one of those guys who I stylistically don't really like, especially with his later NOAH work and beyond. He's still obviously brilliant for the reasons stated but I don't really get any connection from his work. I get your point, I just don't agree with it personally.

Thanks! One bit of extra context for the last match that might be of interest is that while most of Kea's Heavyweight Trial Series wasn't televised, we do get a full match with him and Misawa as well. To note, while that match is still fairly good especially with Misawa bumping like a madman for all of Mossman's offence and that getting him over because of sheer name value, it isn't nearly as dynamic as the Taue bout was in terms of storytelling and whatnot. I think there's a fascinating contrast in that to make between the pair in terms of wrestling philosophies.