Luna_Bourke

I don't get why myself, I am having a NOAH and All Japan watch (started with TC, tho watched a fair bit of the Choshu era). By 2003, where I am at it only feels like now they have a solid junior division, and even reliant on outside talent like Liger. I understand that while they wanted to have a stronger focus on the juniors, the young juniors needed time to develop, but Ikeda should have been the top junior at least until about 2003/4. Like, I guess they made him heavyweight, but he a junior in AJPW, and they needed some good juniors, while Kenta, Kanemaru and Marufuji improved, and it would have given Ikeda something more substancial to do.

Only makes my top 100 worst last names.

Yeah, you are right about the submission thing, am bad about remembering finishers, but she could do with a big submission or two. I do absolutely love a lot of her performances, would need to go back to her older work but she is one of my favourite workers right now, so she deserves a shout.

Love him, and is always a joy to watch when I do. I don't watch CMLL regularly enough to put him in my top 100, and he seems to be too in the mid card. Seen him live a few times, like in British J Cup 2019 in a killer match against Robbie Eagles, and then one in Sheffield against Zozaya. He feels legit wild in the latter matcg he broke the barricade in a dive ( I was 2nd row just behind him), he even tried to continue fighting when trapped over a fan and under the barricade. If RevPro used him semi-regularly, or if he made a G1, or was a consistant main eventer in CMLL then he could be top 100, possibly top 50, but as of yet not quite.

One match I would recommend for Onita in his 80s AJPW era is Onita and Steamboat vs The High Flyers (8.6.82) Such a great tag match with one crazy spot from Onita.

My recommendations are: Chihiro Hashimoto & VENY vs. Mayu Iwatani & Sareee (2.9.24) Sareee-ism Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Lena Kross & VENY (9.11.24) Sendai Girls Sareee vs. VENY (17.1.25) SeaDlinnng I don't think she would be top 100 as I haven't watched enough of her work, but she has the best punch in wrestling, great charisma, and so amazing when she cares. She is one of the reasons I wish AEW kept using joshis like they did.

I watched a fair amount of Taue on my AJPW watch (following Triple Crown and watching whatever interests me), and he was great, I prefer Kawada and then Kobashi, but prefer him to Misawa. Am up 2003 on my NOAH/AJPW watch and his NOAH stuff hasn't impressed me at all, unlike the others, bit he was fucked over a bit by the much worse NOAH tag division, and at least intially being paired with Jun Izumida. Like I would say he has a higher peak than Misawa as Taue has a five star match imo (No Fear vs HDM for vacant World Tag Titles 2000), and Misawa's lows were more visible and frequent (Hansen matches, especially that one badddd one).

Great from what I have seen of him, didn't do a deepdive on him exactly, but I watched a fair bit of his stuff, not many US workers pre when I started watching would make my top 100, and I don't think Adonis would, but I do like his non Adorable stuff.

I thought it was a play on Doc Gallows (the Gallows part), so he became the Hangman, thought I heard him say it, but not a 100% All these years later I think he deserves a lot of recongnition, he is one of the best in AEW for in-ring stuff and outside stuff having the great stories and it enhancing the already incredible matches, his NJPW work was fun and I wish he did more tag work.

Not sure I would have him in top 100, but at the time I loved those NXT main events, I was 11/12 in 2017, so my judgement probs wasn't the best, and besides the All In main event I haven't cared for his AEW run, and don't have a ton of interest to go back and watch his NXT stuff, tho I don't go back for a lot of stuff I love as I have too much to watch as it is lol.

As someone who watched a good majority of this era of All Japan, I really liked it. In fact, I prefered it to NOAH (at least from 2000-2002) NOAH also suffered from a weakened roster, of course, not as much as AJPW did, but with all those mid carders foreigners gone, they lost a bit of depth, even if on their own those wrestlers don't generally amount to much, they helped prevent the stars being spread thin. Also, NOAH was pretty poorly booked imo, like the tag division fell apart with Taue's new partner being Jun Izumida, who was fucking awful. No Fear didn't get much of a push as a tag team, and Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama spliting. All Japan's tag division was far from perfect, but I sensed more effort to keep it to a high level. The juniors weren't great for either really, there wasn't much of a junior scene in All Japan, so NOAH's is better, but it takes until the next era for it to be actually be good (excellent) for NOAH, so its not much of a factor. AJPW just feels a lot fresher, as NOAH takes a while to bring in outsiders and foreigners which hurts them, and keeps them from being fresh or having depth.

Its great to see him back in wrestling, and I am very excited to see him with Don Callis. Don was my fave heel commentator in recent years, with his Impact and NJPW runs (plus his AEW guest spots). I have always been a big Mauro Ranallo fan so those two together feels like a bit of a dream team. Very excited overall for MLP.

Super late, but I only just joined. My top 3 matches of 2022 (my only ***** matches of the year) 1. Michael Oku vs. Will Ospreay 2. Aussie Open vs Micheal Oku & Connor Mills (Anniversary Show - Night 1) 3. Astronauts vs Strong Big Japan.