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Hulk Hogan & Buddy Rose vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Yoshiaki Yatsu (NJPW - 5/12/82) is a good match We have another match vs Yatsu 5/6/82 He goes back in 1984 and we just have a match teaming with Dusty vs Inoki & Fujinami 1/6/84. The Dusty & Rose team sounds amazing. Wish that was like 1978.

Dump Runner Up - Chigusa One of the easiest #1's and #2's ever.

Carlos Colon - Has a trio of stone cold classics against Hansen in a one of the legendary feuds of the decade and then moves onto one of the most underrated great rivalries ever against Hercules Ayala. Runner Up - Austin Idol because we've only really got a good look at the 1st half of his year but he has the greatest US feud ever peaking with the greatest US match ever so he deserves a mention.

I've always thought 2001 was an extremely strong year for in ring performance. It gets forgotten/lost due to the death of WCW & ECW, Kobashi is injured, Tamura is doing shoots, HHH follows up his career year with a major injury, and looking backwards ROH isn't established yet. But holy cow it was a hell of a year. Legit candidates all over the world. My pick in 2001 and my pick today is still: Satanico - Has the feud with Ultimo Guerrero & one of the great performances ever in the Infierno en el Ring Runner Up- El Hijo del Santo has rivalries going with Cerebro, Parka, the Nicho match is teaming with Casas. Just an incredible year. More worth noting - Low Ki is the best wrestler in the US, Steve Corino, Shinya Hashimoto, Shinjiro Ohtani, La Parka, Chikayo Nagashima, Akira Hokuto, Mayumi Ozaki, Momoe Nakanishi all deserve shout outs. Awesome year.

Sgt Slaughter - has the epic Patterson feud, the epic Backlund feud, awesome matches against Andre, Pedo Morales, Rick McGraw. Runner Up - Hansen. Has the earth shattering Andre match. A great run in WWF vs Backlund, Inoki matches, a brief team with Hogan that rules.

Hokuto easily Runner Up - Art Barr

Bull no doubt. Smack in the middle of her prime as the best wrestler & coolest person on Earth. Runner Up - Fuerza Guerrera has an amazing year with big matches against Misterioso, Gallo Tapado, and a GOAT performance Octagon. Fuerza is just insanely great.

Bull Nakano ends her run as the best Ace in wrestling by passing the torch to Aja in a classic match. Great singles & tags throughout the year. Runner Up - Hokuto and Bull are really on another level from everyone else.

Bull Nakano isn't just the best wrestler on Earth in 1990, she's up there for coolest living human in 1990. Runner Up - Jumbo, who else?

Tenryu Runner Up - Jumbo I go with these two but its one of the deepest years ever so if you stick with Flair or go with someone else, everyone is right.

Jerry Lawler - matches with Dundee, Idol, Kaufman, and Randy Savage, awesome tag matches. One of the great years of all time. Runner Up Buddy Rose - Has the Hennig feud, the babyface turn and feud vs Dynamite, Rip Oliver & Assasin, the awesome Chris Adams match. A bunch of tags & 6 man matches you should absolutely see if you haven't. One of our strongest runners up in any year.

Manami Toyota - the Hokuto match the June Aja match, the Shimoda match, the Hotta match, the Kansai match, tag & multi person matches. Just an undeniably awesome year. Runner Up - Kiyoshi Tamura is horribly booked with limited opportunities & the Albright debacle but still manages an awesome match with Yamazki & passes the eye test in otherwise short matches or against boring opponents.

Kiyoshi Tamura - This is still in the middle of his peak. Some fun stuff to wrap up UWFi then he goes to RINGS and meets his soul mate (Han) & his nemesis (Yamamoto) while having great stuff with Dick Virj & Willie Peters. Runner Up - This is a loaded year with some good people mentioned (Hashimoto especially) so I'll give a shoutout to Steven Regal who has the Finlay feud, Sting match, Hashimoto match, a killer tag with Bagwell vs Hashimoto & Guerrero, and a host of other good stuff against everyone from Lex Luger to Psicosis.

Tamura - He took almost 5 years off and walked back into pro-wrestling as the best wrestler on Earth. Runner Up - Eddie Guerrero this is probably the closest someone gets to matching Tamura during Tamura's run.

Weird year for me where there's a ton of awesome wrestlers but I think the very best all happen to be part timers or actually die before the end of the year so it's hard to pick them. I'll go with: Kiyoshi Tamura - was a part timer kind of but still worked on every show his promotion ran. So is he really a full timer? Either way he has the earth shattering Vader match, an awesome Gary Albright match, great matches with Sano & Kakihara, fun matches with Severn & Bad News Allen & a pair of terrific tag matches. He meets the eye test too. When you watch him, he looks like the best in the world. Complete package mat work, strikes, selling, just a remarkable worker about to go on an insane run from now until the end of the decade. Runner up - Tenryu. Wraps up WAR vs NJPW and goes right to Onita. Enough said. Runner Runner Up Would've been #1 if not for dying - Art Barr. Hard to call him the best wrestler in the world for 1994 when he died before the year ended but, yeah. Before that he was the best wrestler in the world.

Lawler - big feuds with Hennig & Kerry, big match with Gilbert, tag work. It's Lawler. He's always awesome. Runner Up - Tenryu has the matches with Hansen, big Jumbo match, tag work. It's Tenryu. He's always awesome.

Tamura is firmly in his "easily the best in the world" phase. Runner Up - Santo feels like a good pick here. Kudo if she didn't retire. Funk if he didn't retire are other notables.

Tamura is still in his far & away the best wrestler on earth phase. The 30min draw with Kohsaka is as impressive a match as you'll ever see. Other notable wrestler - Wanted to throw a shout out to Shinobu Kandori who has the Hotta classic and one of my favorite Toyota matches ever.

Yeah, it's still Yoshida. Other Notable - Kiyoshi Tamura was down to just a few matches in 1999 but one of them was one of the best matches ever and when he was in a working match he was the best wrestler alive. Thanks a lot RINGS.

Terry Funk - Has the two all timer tags vs Sheik & Abby, a classic singles match with Abby, the tag vs Dos & Mil, the Lewin match, etc etc. Yeah Terry Funk #1 Forever. Another Notable - Buddy Rose has feuds with Piper & Adonis that are two of his best. These two are on a run of being the #1 and #2 male wrestlers on Earth in some order.

Jerry Lawler - Has feuds with Bockwinkel, Dutch Mantell & Andy Kaufman. Probably the start of Lawler's prime. Another wrestler to note - Buddy Rose has the great feuds in Portland with Curt Hennig & Matt Borne. Leaves the nest and has runs in WWF & NJPW. We're firmly in Rose's prime.

Dump Matsumoto & it's not particularly close. Dump in 1986 is like Hokuto in 1993. She's so far ahead of everyone else it's not even fair. Dump has 3 matches from 1986 in my top 10 matches of all time. vs Chigusa (Hair match), vs Yukari Ohmori (the greatest match ever) and vs Itsuki Yamazaki (the greatest large villain vs smaller underdog match ever). Multiple other great matches. The highest anyone ever peaked. Another wrestler worth noting: Ricky Morton. Has the feud with Flair and also the RnR's have their feud with Arn & Ole Anderson with multiple classic matches, they continue their feud with the Midnight Express with multiple classic matches & begin their feud with Rude & Fernandez with another classic match.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Classic!

I mentioned I was considering Saggs at 100 but maybe I could do Saggs at 99 and Knobbs at 100. We'll see when it comes time to vote. The Nasty's knew how to work. They could have the violent out of control brawls but could have good traditional tag team matches as well. Great in terms of working in the ring in a way that is consistent with their character and able to do so as either heels or faces.

I wanted to renominate him because @Grimmas has been threatening to make a case for him for like a decade now. I also just watched a tag with Muraco & Bob Orton Jr vs Hogan & Snuka 5/18/85 and it's an awesome match. If you were going to watch one match with Muraco, I'd pick that one. Incredible Hogan performance.